Background: Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) testing can assist with cardiovascular risk prediction; however, the requirement for rigorous, time-consuming protocols has limited it use in clinical practice.
Methods: Bilateral images of the common carotid artery (CCA), bulb, and internal carotid artery segments were obtained using a comprehensive scanning protocol. Three abbreviated scanning protocols were evaluated for their ability to identify patients with increased CIMT (> or = 75th percentile).
Results: Of 261 subjects, 134 (51.3%) had increased left or right CCA CIMT (CCA protocol), 136 (52.1%) had carotid plaque (plaque protocol), and 190 (72.7%) had plaque or at least one increased CCA CIMT (combination protocol). The area under the receiver-operator characteristic curves for the CCA (0.738) and combination protocols (0.692) were higher than the plaque protocol (0.625, P < .05). The combination protocol was 100% sensitive.
Conclusions: Compared with a comprehensive scanning protocol, plaque screening with measurement of far wall CCA CIMT identifies all patients with increased CIMT.