Smoking status effects on common carotid arteries resistivity and pulsatility indices in current Sudanese smokers

ABSTRACT

Many different indices have been used to describe the shape of the flow waveforms but commonly used indices available on most commercial scanners are resistance index [RI] and pulsatility index [PI]. This study intended to evaluate the effects of smoking in common carotid arteries Doppler RI and PI, according to smoking status [number of cigarettes smoked per day] in current Sudanese smokers. 1752 Sudanese subjects with 440 of them were non smokers. Female's distribution in the total number of subjects is 161 while males are 1591 with mean age of 28 +/- 11.8 years. a percentage of 49.32% of male subjects were current smokers but there was no female found to be a smoker. Ultrasound examination was established within each vascular laboratory to ensure that common carotid arteries sonography is performed consistently, comprehensively and accurately. These techniques may be modified to match the needs of specific patients or vascular laboratories. In all cases, however, the protocol should meet or exceed the standards established by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine [AIUM] or the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Vascular Laboratories [ICAVL]. The standards of these two agencies are substantially the same which was our guide for sonographic scanning in the study. Smoking status in current smokers effectively increases the RI and the PI than their normal ranges with a positive linear correlation manner. Findings of this study reported that smoking status effectively increase common carotid arteries Doppler RI and PI in a positive manner were the effect noticed to be in the left common carotid artery more than that of the right one