Ultrasound diagnostic compared with angiography of carotid arteries in the diagnosis of multifocal atherosclerosis

Abstract

According to the modern statistics, the isolated atherosclerotic lesion in one arterial region occurs twice less often, than the combined lesion in several regions. Among the last, significant stenoses (>50 %) make up to 25 % of cases. Vascular surgeons need high-informative and noninvasive diagnostic methods for detection of way of surgical treatment of these lesions. So far the X-ray contrast angiography (AG) remains a method of «the gold standard» whereas the screening part is assigned to the duplex scanning (DS). The aim of present study was to compare results of ultrasonic DS and angiography in patients with multifocal atherosclerosis. Sensitivity and specificity of these methods had been evaluated. By means of screening of 565 men of 45-59-years-old, 64 patients with multifocal atherosclerotic lesions in coronary, carotid and low extremity arteries were identified. They were examined using DS and AG. The degree of carotid stenosis was accurately measured both by means of ultrasonic duplex scanning and angiography. Sensitivity and specificity of DS were 86 and 71 %, sensitivity of AG was 97 %, specificity was 86 %. Furthermore duplex scanning provided more information in detecting of unstable plaques compared with angiography. Thus ultrasound diagnostic may be considered a useful method for detecting different characteristics of multifocal atherosclerotic lesion, including the preoperative noninvasive assessment.