Association of Carotid Artery Intima-Media Thickness and Plaque Score with Coronary Heart Disease

Objective To investigate the relationship between cervical atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease(CHD) through detecting intima-media thickness(IMT) and plaque in carotid artery.Methods The carotid IMT and plaque score were measured in 149 patients with suspected CHD by color Doppler flow imagining and all the patients were divided into CHD group(99 cases) and non-CHD group(50 cases) by coronary angiography(CAG).Carotid IMT,the plaque index and the detection rate of carotid plaque were compared between CHD group and non-CHD group.Results The carotid IMT(t=2.578)and plaque index(t=3.182) of CHD group were significantly higher than those of non-CHD group(P0.01).The detection rate of carotid plaque of CHD group was very higher than those of non-CHD group.Conclusions There is close correlation between carotid atheromatous plaque and CHD,so the carotid atheromatous plaque is an effective parameter for early prediction of CHD.