Evaluation of Carotid Artery Structure and Function of the Brachial Artery in Children with Coarctation of Aorta Using High-frequency Ultrasound / 中国医学影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Purpose To evaluate the carotid artery structure and diastolic function of the brachial artery in children with coarctation of aorta (CoA) using high-frequency ultrasound. Materials and Methods Twenty-four cases of children with CoA were selected, among them seven cases were simple CoA and 17 cases were combined with other cardiac malformations, and 20 cases of simple ventricular septal defect (VSD) children and 20 healthy children over the same period were selected as the control groups. Carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) and brachial artery flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) in all subjects were evaluated using high-frequency ultrasound, vascular structure and functional changes were compared before CoA correction and VSD repair treatment. Results Carotid artery IMT of CoA group was (0.47±0.12) mm, which was significantly larger than the VSD group (0.41±0.10) mm and the control group (0.40±0.09) mm, and the difference was statistically significant (F=4.275, P0.05) between the VSD group and the control group for carotid artery IMT and brachial artery FMD. Conclusion In children with CoA, besides the structure abnormalities of the narrowing vascular, there is also the combination of structural and fuctional changes such as carotid artery intima-media complex thickening and brachial artery flow-mediated dilation function decrease.