Correlations between the atherosclerotic changes of femoral, carotid and coronary arteries: a post mortem study.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the severity of atherosclerosis in the carotid, coronary and femoral arteries in autopsy findings of stroke patients.

METHODS AND RESULTS

40 patients (age: 75.2 (12.3) years, 21 men, 19 women) were investigated, who died of ischemic stroke. Carotid, femoral and coronary arteries were removed and cut into slices. Atherosclerotic changes were scored and compared. The severity of atherosclerotic changes of the common carotid artery did not correlate with any other arteries. Atherosclerotic parameters of the internal carotid artery correlated with those of the deep femoral and common femoral arteries (r=0.457-0.459; P=0.022-0.028 respectively). We found significant correlations between the deep femoral artery and left anterior descendent coronary arteries (r=0.513; P=0.012). External carotid artery correlated with both the left anterior descendent coronary and deep femoral arteries (r=0.458-0.473 and P=0.028-0.017 respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

The severity of atherosclerosis in the external carotid arteries and/or the femoral arteries showed a stronger correlation with the atherosclerosis in the coronaries than that of the common carotid arteries.