1. In previous studies, the elastic properties of the common carotid artery were found to differ between men and women. In these studies, however, the phase of the menstrual cycle was not taken into consideration. It was the aim of the present study to investigate the effect of changing ovarian hormone levels during the normal menstrual cycle on the arterial wall properties of female large arte...

Carotid artery occlusion is a major risk factor for ischemic stroke. Endovascular treatment of carotid artery occlusion in high-risk patients offers a therapeutic option to reduce subsequent ischemic events. The technical success and avoidance of complications of the endovascular recanalization of occluded carotid artery is contingent on proper visualization of the vessel wall. To highlight the...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We evaluated several hemodynamic parameters for the prediction of rupture in a data set of initially unruptured aneurysms, including aneurysms that ruptured during follow-up observation. METHODS Aneurysm geometry was extracted from CT angiographic images and analyzed using a mathematical formula for fluid flow under pulsatile blood flow conditions. Fifty side-wall inter...

BACKGROUND Previous clinical studies have observed relationships between increased intima-media thickness (IMT) in the carotid artery, elevated blood pressure, and low wall shear stress (WSS) calculated from the Poiseuille equation. This study used numerical methods to more accurately determine WSS in the carotid artery and to investigate possible determinants of increased IMT. METHODS IMT [c...

A 50-year-old woman presented with left-sided Horner syndrome that had occurred after an extensive scuba dive 10 days before. Ultrasound of the cervical arteries showed a homogeneous, moderately echolucent, excentric thickening of the left internal carotid artery wall (the Figure, A), findings that were strongly suggestive of a several-dayold intramural carotid hematoma associated with carotid ...

The dynamics of the carotid artery wall has been recognized as a valuable indicator to evaluate the status of atherosclerotic disease in the preclinical stage. However, it is still a challenge to accurately measure this dynamics from ultrasound images. This paper aims at developing an elasticity-based state-space approach for accurately measuring the two-dimensional motion of the carotid artery...

As ultrasonographically assessed carotid arteriosclerosis is being used as a surrogate measure for coronary arteriosclerosis, we performed a prospective longitudinal study of the association of our high-resolution ultrasound assessment of extracranial carotid morphology with the risk of acute coronary events in 1,288 eastern Finnish men. The presence of any structural changes in the common caro...

The goal of this study was to determine the effects of microgravity on myofilament protein expression and both passive and active length-force relationships in carotid and femoral arteries. Microgravity was simulated by 20-day hindlimb unweighting (HU) in Wistar male rats, and carotid and femoral artery segments were isolated from both HU and control (CTL) rats for Western blot and length-force...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We tested the hypothesis that body mass, waist-to-hip circumference ratio, physical inactivity, diabetes, hyperglycemia, and fasting insulin are each positively associated with asymptomatic carotid artery wall thickness. METHODS Average intimal-medial carotid wall thickness (an indicator of atherosclerosis) was measured noninvasively by B-mode ultrasonography in cross-s...

Background and Purpose We tested the hypothesis that body mass, waist-to-hip circumference ratio, physical inactivity, diabetes, hyperglycemia, and fasting insulin are each positively associated with asymptomatic carotid artery wall thickness. Methods Average intimal-medial carotid wall thickness (an indicator of atherosclerosis) was measured noninvasively by B-mode ultrasonography in cross-sec...