Cortical inflammation and brain signs of high-risk atherosclerosis in a non-human primate model.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease, inducing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular acute events. A role of neuroinflammation is suspected, but not yet investigated in the gyrencephalic brain and the related activity at blood-brain interfaces is unknown. A non-human primate model of advanced atherosclerosis was first established using longitudinal blood samples, multimodal imaging and gene analysis in aged animals.

Carotid Wall Longitudinal Motion in Ultrasound Imaging: An Expert Consensus Review.

Motion extracted from the carotid artery wall provides unique information for vascular health evaluation. Carotid artery longitudinal wall motion corresponds to the multiphasic arterial wall excursion in the direction parallel to blood flow during the cardiac cycle. While this motion phenomenon has been well characterized, there is a general lack of awareness regarding its implications for vascular health assessment or even basic vascular physiology.

Minoxidil versus placebo in the treatment of arterial wall hypertrophy in children with Williams Beuren Syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Insufficient elastin synthesis leads to vascular complications and arterial hypertension in children with Williams-Beuren syndrome. Restoring sufficient quantity of elastin should then result in prevention or inhibition of vascular malformations and improvement in arterial blood pressure.

Methods: The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of minoxidil on Intima Media Thickness (IMT) on the right common carotid artery after twelve-month treatment in patient with Williams-Beuren syndrome.

Childhood/adult-onset lysosomal acid lipase deficiency: A serious metabolic and vascular phenotype beyond liver disease-four new pediatric cases.

Background: The childhood/adult-onset lysosomal acid lipase deficiency (LALD; late-onset LALD) is a rare genetic disease. Children present severe fatty liver disease with early cirrhosis. Before enzyme replacement therapy, statins were the standard treatment to improve the severe dyslipidemia.

A Fully-Automatic Method to Segment the Carotid Artery Layers in Ultrasound Imaging: Application to Quantify the Compression-Decompression Pattern of the Intima-Media Complex During the Cardiac Cycle.

The aim of this study was to introduce and evaluate a contour segmentation method to extract the interfaces of the intima-media complex in carotid B-mode ultrasound images. The method was applied to assess the temporal variation of intima-media thickness during the cardiac cycle. The main methodological contribution of the proposed approach is the introduction of an augmented dimension to process 2-D images in a 3-D space.

Lipid profile and cardiovascular risk factors in pediatric liver transplant recipients.

Cardiovascular diseases induce long-term morbidity and mortality of adult LT recipients. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess CVRF, lipid abnormalities, and atherosclerosis (appraised by c-IMT), more than 10 yr after pediatric LT. Thirty-one children who underwent LT between December 1990 and December 2000 were included.

Low WSS Induces Intimal Thickening, while Large WSS Variation and Inflammation Induce Medial Thinning, in an Animal Model of Atherosclerosis.

Objective: Atherosclerotic plaque development in the arterial wall is the result of complex interaction between the wall's endothelial layer and blood hemodynamics. However, the interaction between hemodynamic parameters and inflammation in plaque evolution is not yet fully understood. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relation between wall shear stress (WSS) and vessel wall inflammation during atherosclerotic plaque development in a minipig model of carotid stenosis.

Real-time ultrasound-tagging to track the 2D motion of the common carotid artery wall in vivo.

Purpose: Tracking the motion of biological tissues represents an important issue in the field of medical ultrasound imaging. However, the longitudinal component of the motion (i.e.

Progressive attenuation of the longitudinal kinetics in the common carotid artery: preliminary in vivo assessment.

Longitudinal kinetics (LOKI) of the arterial wall consists of the shearing motion of the intima-media complex over the adventitia layer in the direction parallel to the blood flow during the cardiac cycle. The aim of this study was to investigate the local variability of LOKI amplitude along the length of the vessel. By use of a previously validated motion-estimation framework, 35 in vivo longitudinal B-mode ultrasound cine loops of healthy common carotid arteries were analyzed.

A new technique for the estimation of cardiac motion in echocardiography based on transverse oscillations: a preliminary evaluation in silico and a feasibility demonstration in vivo.

Quantification of regional myocardial motion and deformation from cardiac ultrasound is fostering considerable research efforts. Despite the tremendous improvements done in the field, all existing approaches still face a common limitation which is intrinsically connected with the formation of the ultrasound images. Specifically, the reduced lateral resolution and the absence of phase information in the lateral direction highly limit the accuracy in the computation of lateral displacements.

Simultaneous extraction of carotid artery intima-media interfaces in ultrasound images: assessment of wall thickness temporal variation during the cardiac cycle.

Objectives: The aim of this work is to present and evaluate a novel segmentation method for localizing the contours of the intima-media complex in the carotid artery wall through longitudinal ultrasound B-mode imaging. The method is used to investigate the association between atherosclerosis risk factors and the cyclic variation of the intima-media thickness during the heart beat.

Methods: The framework introduced is based on two main features.

Evaluation of a Kalman-based block matching method to assess the bi-dimensional motion of the carotid artery wall in B-mode ultrasound sequences.

We aim at investigating arterial diseases at early stage, by assessing the longitudinal (i.e. in the same direction as the blood flow) motion of the intima-media complex.

Longitudinal displacement of the carotid wall and cardiovascular risk factors: associations with aging, adiposity, blood pressure and periodontal disease independent of cross-sectional distensibility and intima-media thickness.

The recently discovered longitudinal displacement of the common carotid arterial wall (i.e., the motion along the same plane as the blood flow), may be associated with incident cardiovascular events and represents a novel and relevant clinical information.

Echocardiographic evidence for valvular toxicity of benfluorex: a double-blind randomised trial in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Objectives: REGULATE trial was designed to compare the efficacy and safety of benfluorex versus pioglitazone in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients.

Methods: Double-blind, parallel-group, international, randomised, non-inferiority trial. More than half of the 196 participating centres were primary care centres.

Measurement of two-dimensional movement parameters of the carotid artery wall for early detection of arteriosclerosis: a preliminary clinical study.

The aim of this study was to clinically investigate the association between the risk factors of early-stage atherosclerosis and the two-dimensional (2-D) movement of the artery wall. To meet this objective, a speckle tracking approach for the estimation of the 2-D trajectory of the vessel wall was proposed and applied to B-mode ultrasound (US) sequences of the left common carotid artery (CCA). A deformable skeleton model was also introduced in the block matching scheme.

Carotid intima-media and adventitial thickening: comparison of new and established ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging techniques.

Objective: Carotid intima-media thickness is a well established non-invasive surrogate marker of cardiovascular disease, however there is evidence that structural modification of the arterial adventitia also accompanies cardiovascular risk factors and might be involved causally in atherosclerosis. We sought to determine the relative contributions of the intima-media and adventitia to variation in ultrasound and magnetic resonance derived measures of carotid wall thickness.

Methods: Carotid ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging were undertaken in 20 participants.

Noninvasive assessment of the prevalence and characteristics of coronary atherosclerotic plaques by multidetector computed tomography in asymptomatic type 2 diabetic patients at high risk of significant coronary artery disease: a preliminary study.

Background: There is a need to identify diabetic patients at risk of cardiovascular events before symptom onset.

Aims: To evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of coronary atherosclerotic plaques in asymptomatic type 2 diabetic patients with coronary risk factors but without known coronary artery disease, using multidetector computed tomography.

Methods: High-resolution 40-slice coronary computed tomography was performed prospectively in 42 consecutive type 2 diabetic patients (mean age 62 years; range 50-77 years; 28 men) with over one or more carotid atherosclerotic plaque and no coronary artery disease symptoms.

Noninvasive measurement of carotid extra-media thickness: associations with cardiovascular risk factors and intima-media thickness.

Objectives: We sought to develop a noninvasive technique to quantify the thickness of a segment of the carotid artery wall that incorporates the adventitia and to identify whether differences in this measure are associated with cardiovascular risk factors.

Background: There is increasing evidence that the arterial adventitia undergoes extensive structural alteration, including thickening, in response to arterial injury. However, there is currently no widely accepted noninvasive technique for studying the thickness of the arterial adventitia in humans.

Parity and carotid atherosclerosis in men and women: insights into the roles of childbearing and child-rearing.

Background And Purpose: Parity appears to be associated with carotid atherosclerosis in women aged 45 years and older. Studying this association among younger women and men may provide insight into whether this association relates predominantly to childbearing or child-rearing.

Methods: The association between parity and carotid atherosclerosis (intima-media thickness and presence of plaques) was assessed in a cohort consisting of 750 women and 1164 men, all with at least one traditional cardiovascular risk factor, aged 18 to 80 years of age.

Increased levels of endothelial microparticles CD144 (VE-Cadherin) positives in type 2 diabetic patients with coronary noncalcified plaques evaluated by multidetector computed tomography (MDCT).

Objective: The combination of both morphological and cellular markers of subclinical atherosclerosis, in addition to conventional risk factors, may help to improve cardiovascular prevention in type 2 diabetic patients. The aim of our cross-sectional study was to evidence a putative increase in endothelial (EMP) or platelet (PMP) microparticles, in type 2 diabetic patients with coronary noncalcified plaques detected by multidetector CT (MDCT).

Methods And Results: Microparticles and coronary MDCT were assessed in 56 type 2 diabetic patients with different cardiovascular risk levels.

The reliability of high resolution MRI in the measurement of early stage carotid wall thickening.

Purpose: To study the repeatability of common carotid mean wall thickness (MWT) measured with high resolution MRI, in comparison with intima media thickness (IMT) assessed by ultrasound and to investigate the relative capabilities of these two modalities.

Materials And Methods: Ten healthy volunteers and 10 subjects with carotid artery atherosclerosis were imaged with both high resolution MRI and US. Measurement of both MWT and IMT was performed by three blinded observers.

A comparison of the NCEP-ATPIII, IDF and AHA/NHLBI metabolic syndrome definitions with relation to early carotid atherosclerosis in subjects with hypercholesterolemia or at risk of CVD: evidence for sex-specific differences.

The metabolic syndrome is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the association between metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis in hypercholesterolemic patients remains unknown. We examined the association between carotid atherosclerosis and metabolic syndrome definitions using the NCEP-ATPIII, International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI) definitions in 1782 subjects at risk of cardiovascular disease including 926 with hypercholesterolemia (LDL cholesterol > or =160 mg/dL; mean=203 mg/dL).

[Cardiovascular prevention of high risk patients by hypolipidemic treatment].

Afssaps guidelines 2005 for the treatment of dyslipidemic patients provide a valuable tool for optimal treatment in clear cut situations. However, for patients with intermediate cardiovascular risk or when it might be necessary to intensify hypolipidemic treatment, additional risk markers can be contributive for risk estimation (CRP, intima-media thickness) and it is usefull to take into account the physiopathology of dyslipidemia and subgroup analysis of clinical trials. An efficient cardiovascular prevention implies a screening of high cardiovascular risk subjects, an optimal treatment and conversely not to over treat low risk subjects.

Incremental predictive value of carotid ultrasonography in the assessment of coronary risk in a cohort of asymptomatic type 2 diabetic subjects.

Objective: Consensus guidelines recommend cardiovascular risk assessment as the initial step of primary prevention. The aim of this study was to evaluate the incremental predictive value for coronary events conferred by carotid ultrasonography in addition to risk assessment by Framingham score and screening for silent myocardial ischemia in a cohort of type 2 diabetic patients.

Research Design And Methods: We prospectively studied 229 patients free of any cardiovascular complication with at least one additional cardiovascular risk factor.