Department of Ultrasound, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Department of Echocardiography, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jun 11;8(1):8849. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-27260-0.
Inflammatory activity plays a central role in the development of carotid rupture-vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques, which is one of the major contributors to acute ischemic stroke. Our objective was to characterize carotid intraplaque neovascularizations (INP) using contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and evaluate plaque burden through exploring the relationship between INP and cell count of peripheral leukocytes. Sixty-two patients with large artery atherosclerosis (LAA) were enrolled in this study. CEUS was performed to characterize the carotid artery plaques. The correlations between the CEUS imaging features of carotid plaques and leukocyte counts were investigated. The results showed that the characteristic parameters derived from CEUS, including peak of time-intensity curve (TIC-P), mean of time-intensity curve (TIC-M), peak (FC-P), sharpness (FC-S) and area under the curve (FC-AUC) compared with the control group, were all increased in the stroke group. TIC-P, TIC-M and FC-P were negatively related to lymphocytes, respectively. FC-S and FC-AUC were positively correlated with neutrophils, respectively. Our study indicated carotid INP was closely related to the peripheral leukocytes count. CEUS may serve as a useful tool to predict vulnerability of plaque.
炎症活动在颈动脉易破裂斑块的形成中起着核心作用，而颈动脉易破裂斑块是急性缺血性脑卒中的主要原因之一。本研究旨在通过探讨颈动脉斑块内新生血管（INP）与外周血白细胞计数之间的关系，利用对比增强超声（CEUS）来描述颈动脉斑块内的新生血管。本研究纳入了 62 例大动脉粥样硬化（LAA）患者，进行 CEUS 以描述颈动脉斑块的特征。研究了颈动脉斑块的 CEUS 成像特征与白细胞计数之间的相关性。结果表明，与对照组相比，CEUS 特征参数，包括时间强度曲线（TIC）峰值（TIC-P）、TIC 均值（TIC-M）、峰值（FC-P）、锐利度（FC-S）和曲线下面积（FC-AUC）在卒中组中均增加。TIC-P、TIC-M 和 FC-P 分别与淋巴细胞呈负相关。FC-S 和 FC-AUC 分别与中性粒细胞呈正相关。我们的研究表明颈动脉 INP 与外周血白细胞计数密切相关。CEUS 可能是一种预测斑块易损性的有用工具。
