Abstract
BackgroundVascular disease expression in one location may not be representative for disease severity in other vascular territories, however, strong correlation between disease expression and severity within the same vascular segment may be expected. Therefore, we hypothesized that aortic stiffening is more strongly associated with disease expression in a vascular territory directly linked to that aortic segment rather than in a more remote segment. We prospectively compared the association between aortic wall stiffness, expressed by pulse wave velocity (PWV), sampled in the distal aorta, with the severity of peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) as compared to atherosclerotic markers sampled in remote vascular territories such as PWV in the proximal aorta and the normalized wall index (NWI), representing the vessel wall thickness, of the left common carotid artery.MethodsForty-two patients (23 men; mean age 64±10 years) underwent velocity-encoded cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in the proximal and distal aorta, whole-body contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) and carotid vessel wall imaging with black-blood CMR in the work-up for PAOD. Strength of associations between aortic stiffness, carotid NWI and peripheral vascular stenosis grade were assessed and evaluated with multiple linear regression.ResultsStenosis severity correlated well with PWV in the distal aorta (Pearson rP=0.64, p<0.001, Spearman rS=0.65, p<0.001) but to a lesser extent with PWV in the proximal aorta (rP=0.48, p=0.002, rS=0.22, p=0.18). Carotid NWI was not associated with peripheral stenosis severity (rP=0.17, p=0.28, rS=0.14, p=0.37) nor with PWV in the proximal aorta (rP=0.22, p=0.17) nor in the distal aorta (rP=0.21, p=0.18). Correlation between stenosis severity and distal aortic PWV remained statistically significant after correction for age and gender.ConclusionsDistal aortic wall stiffness is more directly related to peripheral arterial stenosis severity than markers from more remote vascular territories such as proximal aortic wall stiffness or carotid arterial wall thickness. Site-specific evaluation of vascular disease may be required for full vascular risk estimation.
Highlights
Vascular disease expression in one location may not be representative for disease severity in other vascular territories, strong correlation between disease expression and severity within the same vascular segment may be expected
From an observational cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) study in 394 subjects, Barbier et al reported that unrecognized myocardial infarction was not associated with manifestation of atherosclerosis depicted on whole-body MR angiography, nor with increased intima-media thickness (IMT) sampled in the carotid artery [1]
The purpose of this study was to prospectively compare the association between aortic wall stiffness, expressed by pulse wave velocity, sampled in the distal aorta with the severity of peripheral arterial occlusive disease as compared to atherosclerotic markers sampled in remote vascular territories such as PWV in the proximal aorta and normalized wall index [10] describing the vessel wall thickness of the left common carotid artery
Summary
Vascular disease expression in one location may not be representative for disease severity in other vascular territories, strong correlation between disease expression and severity within the same vascular segment may be expected. A stronger association between arterial vessel wall thickness and wall stiffness has been demonstrated when these markers were sampled regionally within the same vascular territory of either the aorta or the carotid artery, rather than across vascular territories [3]. Atherosclerosis involves both arterial wall thickening due to fatty degeneration (i.e., atherosis) and arterial wall stiffening due to media degeneration (i.e., sclerosis) [4,5]. With velocityencoded CMR, the PWV can be accurately assessed with high reproducibility, regionally in the aorta [9]
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