Premium
Quantification of Atherosclerotic Burden in the Descending Aorta by Transesophageal Echocardiography
Author(s) -
KHOURY ZAHI,
RINAT CHONI,
BENHORIN JESAIA,
STERN SHLOMO,
KEREN ANDRE
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
echocardiography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1540-8175
pISSN - 0742-2822
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8175.1998.tb00578.x
Subject(s) - reproducibility , medicine , descending aorta , aorta , cardiology , mean difference , significant difference , coronary artery disease , radiology , lumen (anatomy) , nuclear medicine , confidence interval , mathematics , statistics
Atherosclerotic plaques had been imaged but not quantitated in the thoracic aorta using transesophageal echocardiography. The aim of this study was to describe a method for measuring the atherosclerotic plaque area in the descending aorta by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and to evaluate its reproducibility. TEE examinations were performed by two independent sonographers, in 21 patients with angiographically proven coronary artery disease. Two hundred fifty‐six transverse segments (mean 12 ± 3 patient) of the descending aorta were adequately recorded. In each segment the plaque and the lumen areas in the half of the aortic segment distant from the transesophageal probe were measured by one reader in the two studies (intersonographer reproducibility). Interreader reproducibility was also evaluated. The correlation coefficient between the first and second study (intersonographer reproducibility) was 0.81. The standard deviation of the difference between examinations equaled 0.137 cm 2 and the mean absolute difference between examinations was 0.003 cm 2 (95% CI: –0.015; 0.021; P = 0.75). The correlation coefficient between the two readers was 0.86, the standard deviation of the difference between readers was 0.175 cm 2 and the mean absolute difference was 0.006 cm 2 (95% CI: –0.029; 0.018; P = 0.63). A method for quantitative measurement of aortic atherosclerotic plaque area was evaluated and found to have high intersonographer and intereader reproducibilities. This method might be used in the future for noninvasive evaluation of regression or progression of aortic atherosclerosis.