What has intravascular ultrasound taught us about plaque biology?

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has a defined role in the cardiac catheterization laboratory to assess lesion severity and the procedural success of vascular interventions. However, IVUS has also contributed to our understanding of the biology of atherosclerosis and restenosis. In acute coronary syndromes, IVUS has revealed varying degrees of stenosis, thrombosis, and plaque derangement typical of the plaque disruption seen in many pathologic studies of patients who have died of this condition. IVUS has demonstrated that the culprit lesions of patients surviving acute coronary syndromes also tend to be softer, with less calcium, and tend to have more plaque with positive arterial remodeling (compensatory enlargement) than lesions causing stable coronary syndromes. Arterial remodeling is also an important component of restenosis after coronary interventions. IVUS has suggested that interventions that reduce restenosis tend to have a greater impact on preventing negative remodeling (constriction) rather than reducing neointimal proliferation. Oxidant stress may be an important contributor to negative remodeling, as IVUS has demonstrated this anatomy at sites of coronary artery spasm. Positive remodeling seen by IVUS is also associated with impaired endothelial vasomotor dysfunction, and IVUS studies have demonstrated the contribution of vasomotor tone to arterial elasticity. Future directions include integrating IVUS with other imaging modalities, such as angiography, to study the interaction of anatomic and physiologic factors in atherosclerosis progression, and using the raw ultrasound signal to distinguish plaque components and differences in wall strain that may identify vulnerable plaques.