2009 Southern Regional Meeting Abstracts

Purpose of Study: Information on the impact of multiple cardiovascular (CV) risk factors on the intima-media thickness (IMT) of femoral and carotid artery segments measured simultaneously has not been studied in younger adult population.
Methods Used: Femoral and carotid IMT were measured by B-mode ultrasonography in 1080 black and white subjects (aged 24-43 years; 71% white, 43% male) of the Bogalusa Heart Study.
Summary of Results: Femoral IMT was correlated with common carotid IMT (r = 0.19, p = 0.001), carotid bulb IMT (r = 0.19, p = 0.001), internal carotid IMT (r = 0.09, p = 0.01), and composite carotid IMT (r = 0.09, p = 0.001). In multivariate analyses, systolic blood pressure (SBP), age, male gender, black race, total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio (total/HDL), waist circumference, cigarette smoking and LDL cholesterol were entered as predictor variables in that order for the common carotid IMT (R2 = 0.28); age, total/HDL, SBP, cigarette smoking, male gender and BMI for the carotid bulb IMT (R2 = 0.18); SBP, age, total/HDL, and male gender for the internal carotid IMT (R2 = 0.10); SBP, age, total/HDL, male gender, black race, cigarette smoking and LDL cholesterol for the composite carotid IMT (R2 = 0.27); SBP, age, male gender, cigarette smoking and total/HDL for the femoral IMT (R2 = 0.11). Mean IMT increased with increasing number of risk factors in all arterial segments; p for trend = 0.003 for femoral artery and p for trend = 0.001 for all carotid segments. Associated with 0, 1-2, 3 and 4-5 risk factors, the respective mean IMT (mm) values were 0.72, 0.75, 0.80, 0.84 for common carotid; 0.91, 0.96, 1.05, 1.08 for carotid bulb; 0.69, 0.72, 0.75, 0.79 for internal carotid; 0.72, 0.75, 0.81, 0.85 for composite carotid and 0.66, 0.69, 0.73, 0.79 for the femoral.
Conclusions: Although the femoral IMT and different segments of carotid IMT are significantly inter-correlated, the weak strength of association implies that in low risk population the values of femoral and carotid IMT are not interchangeable. The observed deleterious effect of CV risk factors on IMT of the femoral and carotid arterial segments provides evidence of silent systemic atherosclerosis in young adults.