Post-processing reproducibility of the structural characteristics of the common carotid artery in a Flemish population

Introduction: Common carotid artery (CCA) intima-media thickness (IMT), lumen diameter, and maximum plaque thickness were assessed on ultrasound images. The objective of the study was to evaluate the intra- and inter-reader reproducibility of the measurements following a standardised protocol. Methods: Two readers performed the off-line measurements on B-mode ultrasound images of the distal CCA, in a randomly selected subset (n = 60) from a Flemish population cohort (FLEMENGHO). We calculated the coefficient of variation, the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and reproducibility accordi... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Ljupcho Efremov
Wen-Yi Yang
Lotte Jacobs
Lutgarde Thijs
Tatiana Kuznetsova
Harry A.J. Struijker-Boudier
Jan A. Staessen
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
Reihe/Periodikum: Artery Research, Vol 19 (2017)
Verlag/Hrsg.: BMC
Schlagwörter: Reproducibility study / Carotid artery / Intima-media thickness / Carotid plaques / Specialties of internal medicine / RC581-951 / Diseases of the circulatory (Cardiovascular) system / RC666-701
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27088662
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artres.2017.04.007

Introduction: Common carotid artery (CCA) intima-media thickness (IMT), lumen diameter, and maximum plaque thickness were assessed on ultrasound images. The objective of the study was to evaluate the intra- and inter-reader reproducibility of the measurements following a standardised protocol. Methods: Two readers performed the off-line measurements on B-mode ultrasound images of the distal CCA, in a randomly selected subset (n = 60) from a Flemish population cohort (FLEMENGHO). We calculated the coefficient of variation, the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and reproducibility according to the Bland–Altman method. Results: The intra-reader bias for the measurements of left and right side CCA IMT were −0.003 ± 0.04 mm (p = 0.55) and 0.01 ± 0.04 mm (p = 0.03), respectively. The intra-reader bias of the lumen diameter was −0.04 ± 0.25 mm (p = 0.27) for the left and 0.02 ± 0.22 mm (p = 0.45) for the right side. The measurements for the maximum plaque thickness showed no intra-reader differences with bias 0.07 ± 0.2 mm (p = 0.26) for the left and −0.03 ± 0.2 mm (p = 0.55) for the right side. The inter-reader analysis showed good reproducibility for the left and right side CCA IMT with bias 0.004 ± 0.06 mm (p = 0.57) and −0.008 ± 0.05 mm (p = 0.19), respectively, but the lumen diameter measurements showed inter-reader differences, with bias 0.17 ± 0.27 mm (p < 0.0001) for the left and 0.10 ± 0.21 mm (p = 0.0006) for the right side. The inter-reader bias for the maximum plaque thickness were 0.07 ± 0.2 mm (p = 0.21) and −0.1 ± 0.4 mm (p = 0.26) for the left and right side, respectively. Conclusion: The results demonstrated a reliable reproducibility of carotid wall structural measurements, allowing for an adequate further analysis of the entire population cohort.