福田 久也¹, 吉川 純一¹, 吉田 清¹, 赤阪 隆史¹, 赤土 正洋¹, 藤原 巍²

Hisaya FUKUDA¹, Jyunichi YOSHIKAWA¹, Kiyoshi YOSHIDA¹, Takashi AKASAKA¹, Masahiro SYAKUDO¹, Takashi FUJIWARA²

¹神戸市立中央市民病院循環器センター, ²川崎医科大学胸部外科

¹Department of Cardiology Kobe General Hospital, ²Department of Thoracic Surgery Kawasaki Medical School

キーワード : Intravascular ultrasound, Arterial wall characteristics, Border echo

It has been reported that the wall of the muscular arteries can be visualized as a three layered structure using intravascular ultrasound. However, intimal thickness (intimal leading edge) detected by intravascular ultrasound is thicker than that determined by pathogical specimen. In the present study, we evaluated the above problems in the interpretation of intimal thickness detected by intravascular ultrasound in autopsy cases. The intimal thickness was measured before and after removal of intima including internal elastic membrane. The intimal thickness detected by intravascular ultrasound before removal of the intima ranged from 0.2 to 0.7 mm (mean, 0.4±0.3 mm) and it was decreased after removal of the intima (0.1-0.4 mm, mean, 0.2±0.1 mm). The intimal area before removal of the intima ranged from 7.8 to 16.8 mm², (mean, 11.2±3.2 mm²) and it was also decreased after removal of intimal (5.2-6.1 mm², mean, 5.7±0.2 mm²). Thus, intimal thickness detected by intravascular ultrasound consisted of both intimal and border echoes and arterial wall.