Premium
Hemodynamic Predictors of Atherosclerosis in the Thoracic Aorta
Author(s) -
SUKERNIK MIKHAIL R.,
WEST OSCAR D.,
CHITTIVELU BABU,
VANDERBUSH ERIC J.,
FRANCIS CHARLES K.
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.tb00591.x
Subject(s) - hemodynamics , cardiology , medicine , thoracic aorta , aorta
We sought to identify atherosclerotic plaques and measured flow parameters in the descending aorta (DA) of 83 consecutive patients (40 years and older) studied with transesophageal echocardiography. Patients with atherosclerotic plaques in the DA were older (68 ± 10 vs 58 ± 12 years [P = 0.0001]), had a higher proportion of spontaneous echo contrast in the DA (15/46 [33%] vs 3 of 37 [8%] P = 0.02), had larger aortic diameters (2.52 ± 0.35 vs 2.37 ± 0.36 cm [P = 0.06]), had a lower maximal velocity in the DA (54.2 ± 21.5 vs 73.8 ± 33.0 cm/sec [P = 0.02]), and had a lower calculated maximal shear rate (SR) (88.0 ± 37.6 vs 129.0 ± 67.0 sec −1 [P = 0.002]). There was no significant difference between groups with respect to sex, hypertension, diabetes, total cholesterol, and smoking. In multivariate analysis only age (P = 0.002) and maximal SR (P = 0.03) were identified as independent predictors of atherosclerosis in the DA. We conclude that low SR is associated with aortic atherosclerosis.