Original Article

The Correlation Between Carotid Intima-media Thickness (IMT) and Cerebrovascular Events

10.5222/otd.2013.037

  • Deniz Alagöz
  • Zafer Ünsal Coşkun
  • Cengiz Yılmaz

Received Date: 22.11.2012 Accepted Date: 08.01.2013 Eur Arc Med Res 2013;29(1):37-43

Objective:

In our study we examined the role of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in the early diagnosis of cerebrovascular events (CVE).

Materials and Methods:

We investigated the corelation between the IMT and CVE in a patient group above 50 years of age. Fifty-four patients with a mean age of 68.98±1.39 who had a CVE (acute, subacute, chronic ischemic stroke) in any time of life and 35 control subjects with a mean age of 66.26±1.93 were enrolled in the study. All patients underwent B-mode ultrasonography measurements of the common carotid artery for IMT. All patients and control subjects were evaluated by cranial computed tomography (CT) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Dimensions and localisations of infarcts were determined by cranial computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Depending on imaging modalities, enfarcts are divided into two subtypes as lacunar and non-lacunar (cortical, watershed, large subcortical). We examined the association of lacunar and nonlacunar infarcts with IMT. We have also investigated the association of IMT with other potential risk factors for stroke.

Results:

The mean values of IMTs was 1.11 mm in patient group and and 0.94 mm in control group, respectively. There was statistically significant difference between IMT values of patient and control group (p<0.05). We did not find a significant association between IMT of patients with lacunar and nonlacunar stroke (p>0.05). We found a significant positive association between IMT and age (p<0.05).

Conclusion:

The result of this study shows the usefulness of noninvasive measurement of IMT as a diagnostic tool, in addition to risk factors, in the early diagnosis of ischemic stroke.

Keywords: stroke, carotid intima-media thickness, B-mode ultrasound, cerebrovascular disease