The presence of high blood pressure, high heart rate, and high serum creatinine were the major determinants of accelerated progression of aortic stiffness in treated hypertensives. This is the first longitudinal study to evaluate the determinants of arterial aging over an extended period of time.

Metabolic syndrome is associated with an increased progression of aortic stiffness with age, supporting premature senescence in these patients.

This study shows that there is a differential association of PWV with CCA-IMT and carotid plaques. The nature of the independent positive association between atherosclerosis and arterial stiffness should be thoroughly investigated.

Abstract-A better understanding of the interrelationships between the structure and function of the large arteries would lead to optimize cardiovascular disease prevention strategies. In this study, we investigated the relationships of aortic arterial stiffness assessed by carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity (PWV), with carotid plaque echogenicity assessed by B-mode ultrasound. We analyzed 561 subjects (without coronary heart disease or stroke) who were volunteers for free health examinations (age, 58.3Ϯ10.8 years; 32.6% women). Extracranial carotid plaque echogenicity was graded from 1 (plaque appearing black or almost black) to 4 (plaque appearing white or almost white) according to the Gray-Weale classification. Plaques of grades 1 and 2 were defined as echolucent plaques, and plaques of grades 3 and 4 were defined as echogenic plaques. Key Words: atherosclerosis Ⅲ carotid arteries Ⅲ epidemiology Ⅲ hypertension, arterial Ⅲ ultrasonography S tudying the possible interrelationships between the structure and function of the large arteries would lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of vascular diseases, to a better evaluation of stroke and cardiovascular risks, and thus to the development of more adequate disease prevention strategies. In a recent study, we reported that the presence of carotid atherosclerotic plaques detected by B-mode ultrasound but not diffuse intima-media thickening was determinant of aortic arterial stiffness assessed by carotid-femoral pulse-wave velocity (PWV), independent of major known cardiovascular risk factors. 1 These findings obtained from a large study of hypertensive and normotensive subjects corroborate the recent results of the Rotterdam Study, showing that arterial stiffness was related to abdominal aortic and carotid atherosclerotic plaques. 2 The mechanisms linking arterial stiffness to atherosclerosis are not known at present. Atherosclerotic changes in the arterial wall could include smooth muscle cell proliferation, deposition of lipid and accumulation of collagen, elastin, and/or proteoglycans. 3,4 However, it is not known whether plaques with different contents are differentially related to arterial stiffness. Plaque echogenicity as assessed by B-mode ultrasound has been found to reliably predict the content of soft tissue and the amount of calcification. [5][6][7][8] Plaques that appear echolucent on B-mode ultrasound are lipid-rich, whereas echogenic plaques have a higher content of fibrous tissue and calcification. 9 -11 In our above-mentioned study, 1 plaque echogenicity was assessed; in the current article, we report the cross-sectional associations of aortic PWV with carotid echolucent and echogenic plaques in 561 hypertensive and nonhypertensive subjects.

SCD-LU complete healing is independently associated with the clinical characteristics of LUs rather than the clinical or biological characteristics of SCD.