Assessing the short-term effects of radiotherapy on the shear modulus of the common carotid artery as a new biomarker of radiation-induced atherosclerosis

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the incidence of short-term atherosclerosis in the common carotid arteries following radiotherapy.Methods: The mean radiation dose to the arteries was 49.30±15.83 Gy. A computational ultrasound method was introduced to investigate the elastic modulus. Ultrasonography was performed 2-3 cm inferior to the bifurcation region before and after radiotherapy, and sequential images were extracted from a video of each artery. Instantaneous movement of the arterial wall in the radial and longitudinal directions was extracted by implementing the maximum gradient and block matching algorithms, respectively.Results: There was a significant change in systolic blood pressure after radiotherapy (P=0.008). Irradiated arteries had significantly smaller systolic and end-diastolic diameters than non-irradiated arteries (P<0.001). The shear modulus was significantly different between irradiated and non-irradiated arteries (3.10±2.03 kPa vs. 1.38±0.98 kPa, P<0.001). The shear and Young moduli of radiation-induced arteries were 2.25±1.50 and 1.57±0.59 times higher than those of the pre-irradiation arteries.Conclusion: The arterial shear modulus can be considered as a new biomarker of radiationinduced atherosclerosis in the common carotid artery.

Biomechanical changes of the common carotid artery and internal jugular vein in patients with multiple sclerosis

“…L max and L min are the maximum and minimum longitudinal displacements of the vessel wall, respectively. The shear modulus ( E s ) is obtained from the difference between the maximum shear stress ( δ s,max ) and the minimum shear stress ( δ s,min ) divided by the shear strain ( ε s ) according to the following equation [ 17 ]:…”

Dual effects of radiotherapy on tumor microenvironment and its contribution towards the development of resistance to immunotherapy in gastrointestinal and thoracic cancers

“…Radiation may cause microthrombosis and increased adhesion of inflammatory immune cells to endothelial cells in the vasculature which is followed by extravasation of blood cells into the perivascular space ( Wang et al, 2007 ). Following this, the intimal layer of the irradiated blood vessel was reported to thicken, leading to irreversible change in vasculature wall ( Gujral et al, 2014 ; Mohammadkarim et al, 2022 ). Accordingly, controversial findings were reported about the impact of radiation on the angiogenesis and metastasis.…”