Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography
Original articleUse of Hand-held Ultrasound by a Nonsonographer Clinician to Measure Carotid Intima-Media Thickness
Section snippets
Participant Characteristics
Our institutional review board approved this study. Participants were asymptomatic adults aged 40 to 75 years, without known CV disease, who were referred by their physicians to our vascular health screening program for clinical measurement of CIMT. Participants were enrolled consecutively from November 2004 to April 2005.
Results from clinically obtained, fasting blood samples were obtained. Fasting plasma glucose, serum total cholesterol, triglyceride, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol
Participant Characteristics
Baseline characteristics are shown in the Table. Among 75 participants (mean [SD] age 55 [7] years), 55% were female, and 95% were white. Systolic blood pressure was 130 (17) mm Hg with 36% of participants taking blood pressure–lowering medications. Nearly half (47%) were taking lipid-lowering therapy. Composite CIMT using the REF system was 0.716 (0.146) mm. Participants in phase II had higher composite CIMT values than participants in phase I, and fewer were on blood pressure–lowering therapy
Discussion
This study demonstrated that CCA CIMT and determination of plaque presence from images obtained using the HHU system were similar to those obtained on a standard REF system. It also showed that a NSC can be trained to obtain images of good enough quality for CIMT measurement using the HHU system, and that CIMT measurements and plaque presence determined by the NSC using the HHU system were similar to those of an EXP using a REF system.
This is the first study to validate the use of a HHU device
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Supported in part by the National Center for Research Resources (RR-1617601); the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL-07936); and Sonosite Inc.