To investigate relationships between carotid arterial intima-media thickness (IMT) and age in childhood, we performed high-resolution carotid arterial ultrasonography in 60 healthy children (27 boys, 33 girls; age range, 5-14 years) determined by screening to have no dyslipidemia or hypertension. No plaque formation was found, and irregularity of IMT (root mean square roughness of IMT) did not correlate with age. Mean IMT increased in a linear manner with age [IMT in millimeters = (0.009 x age in years) + 0.35] ( r = 0.39, P = 0.002). This correlation remained significant after adjustment for gender, parental smoking, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, and serum concentrations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides. None of these known cardiovascular disease risk factors in adults had a significant relationship with age-adjusted IMT in children. While circumferential wall stress and diastolic blood pressure were not correlated with age, mean IMT and lumen diameter showed significant positive relationships with circulating blood volume, which was calculated as the function of height and weight. These data suggested that age-dependent physiologic thickening of arterial walls begins in childhood.

No abstract

Noninvasive ultrasonographic assessment of carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) can improve risk stratification for coronary artery disease (CAD) in certain patients. Several measurements have been used to evaluate carotid atherosclerosis by ultrasonography. Although it has been reported that angiographic arterial irregularities correlate with pathologic changes of atherosclerosis and the occurrence of cardiovascular events, only a few studies have assessed carotid arterial wall irregularity by ultrasonography. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the irregularity of IMT quantitatively, and its association with the presence or absence of CAD. The correlation of maximum and mean IMT values, and IMT irregularity with the presence or absence of CAD, was investigated in 90 patients who had undergone coronary angiography. IMT was measured by manual tracking of the far wall of the common carotid arteries, carotid bulbs, and internal carotid arteries. The IMT irregularity was defined as the root mean square (RMS) difference between each IMT and averaged IMT. Multiple logistic regression analysis, after adjustment for coronary risk factors, indicated that the RMS difference was a more accurate predictor of CAD than were the mean or maximum IMT values. These results indicate that the evaluation of IMT irregularity by ultrasonography is a useful predictor for the presence of coronary atherosclerosis.

Contrast echocardiography identified uniform flow characteristics with blood in the filling flow front moving in well-developed vortices and resulting in a left ventricular filling delay in the impaired left ventricle in spite of an increased early transmitral flow velocity.

A recent report demonstrated that t(8;16) (p11;p13) may be linked to acute monocytic leukaemia (AMoL) of differentiated subtype (M5b) with active haemophagocytosis by leukaemic cells. Only two cases of neonatal AMoL with t(8;16) (p11;p13) have been reported; M5b with haemophogocytosis and M5a. We report a case of neonatal AMoL (M5b) with t(8;16)(p11;p13), but haemophagocytosis by the leukaemic cells was not detected.