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Echocardiographic Screening for Pulmonary Hypertension in Congenital Heart Disease Circulating Plasma microRNAs In Systemic Sclerosis-Associated Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Haemodynamic definitions and updated clinical classification of pulmonary hypertension Percutaneous Coronary Intervention For Bifurcation Coronary Lesions.The 15th Consensus Document from the European Bifurcation Club Neoatherosclerosis in Patients With Coronary Stent Thrombosis: Findings From Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging (A Report of the PRESTIGE Consortium) A new optical coherence tomography-based calcium scoring system to predict stent underexpansion Utilization and Outcomes of Measuring Fractional Flow Reserve in Patients With Stable Ischemic Heart Disease Characteristics of stent thrombosis in bifurcation lesions analysed by optical coherence tomography The impact of downstream coronary stenoses on fractional flow reserve assessment of intermediate left main disease Fractional flow reserve in clinical practice: from wire-based invasive measurement to image-based computation

EditorialOctober 2017, Volume 10, Issue 10

JOURNAL:Circ Cardiovasc Imaging. Article Link

High-Risk Coronary Atherosclerosis Is It the Plaque Burden, the Calcium, the Lipid, or Something Else?

Akiko Maehara, Gregg W. Stone Keywords: calcium death, sudden, cardiac, humans risk factors

ABSTRACT

Cardiac death and myocardial infarction usually result from thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery with underlying atherosclerotic plaque. Histologically, most underlying plaques that have resulted in sudden cardiac death or myocardial infarction because of coronary thrombosis (vulnerable plaque) are ruptured thin-cap fibroatheromas with large plaque burden and a lipid-rich necrotic core. Second most common are erosions of proteoglycan-rich plaques with thrombosis, despite an intact fibrous cap. The extent that macroscopic or microscopic calcification contributes to plaque instability and thrombosis is controversial. Both fibroatheromas and erosion-prone plaques may be calcified and, occasionally, an isolated calcified nodule has been associated with coronary thrombosis. Using noninvasive and invasive imaging techniques, new in vivo insights into the role of calcification in patient and plaque vulnerability are emerging. The computed tomography (CT)-derived coronary artery calcium score (CACS) accounts for the area and the maximum density of each detected calcium deposit in the entire coronary tree and has proven useful in predicting future cardiovascular events in asymptomatic patients at intermediate risk. CT angiography has demonstrated that hypolucent plaques with positive remodeling or a napkin-ring sign predict future cardiac death, myocardial infarction, or acute coronary syndromes (ACS; patient-level analysis). Finally, prospective intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) studies have shown that a large plaque burden, small minimal lumen area (MLA), and composition consistent with a thin-cap fibroatheroma by radiofrequency analysis identifies those plaques that are likely to cause future adverse cardiovascular events (lesion-level analysis). In this regard, coronary calcification has been correlated with plaque burden but not luminal stenosis. Reconciling these differences, especially the apparent discordance between plaque burden, coronary calcium, and lipid as risk factors is a matter of importance.