Upcoming Events
Log In
Pricing
Free Trial

Case: 50-69% stenosis

HIDE
PrevNext

0:00

So here's an example of a carotid that would fall into the 50% to 69% stenosis

0:06

bucket. So here, as we go through the proximal common carotid artery, we can start

0:11

to see a little bit of plaque, not a ton, and nice, good color Doppler throughout.

0:17

We are actually seeing a little bit of aliasing here, so there could be a little

0:20

bit of adjustment in that waveform, ideally.

0:23

And then as we move down, we again continue to see some little bits of plaque,

0:27

primarily calcified plaque, but there's a little bit of soft plaque as well.

0:32

And then as we continue to progress, we get to the carotid bulb.

0:35

Again, continue to see a little bit more buildup of this, which is this hypoechoic

0:39

plaque, which is more soft,

0:42

and some mixed areas of hyperechoic plaque, which is more calcified.

0:48

We're here progressing through the bulb, so the bifurcation, and now we get to the

0:52

proximal ICA. You can see that we're starting to get a little bit of shadowing from

0:56

plaque here, which can limit the ability for us to get waveforms in that area, so

1:01

we have to be careful when we see that.

1:03

But when we're in here in the proximal portion, we are able to elicit a waveform.

1:08

And you can see here we don't have any velocity elevations, but we can already

1:11

start to see a little bit of turbulence that's starting to come in here.

1:15

So as we start to interrogate into that area, you can see now velocity starts to

1:19

elevate. And so here we have over 180 centimeters per second.

1:24

So whether we're using the updated criteria or the classic criteria, this would

1:29

both be within the velocity window for the 50% to 69% stenosis.

1:33

Again, we are seeing a visual stenosis here, plus a velocity stenosis as

1:39

well.

1:41

As we move further down, we are seeing some slight elevations, but not enough to

1:47

meet the new criteria for velocity elevation.

1:51

And then same thing, a little bit more distal.

1:54

When we look on the additional side, we'll see one example of what we call the

1:58

temporal tap. You can see that is reverberation of this distal portion of the ECA

2:04

waveform, and so that is somebody physically tapping on the temporal artery, and

2:08

that's causing that little reverberation to help us identify where we are.

2:12

And then when we look on the other side, we may still see some plaque.

2:14

So we see some soft plaque here.

2:17

Again, continues into the distal CCA.

2:20

And as we move up to the bulb, again, we are seeing more plaque

2:25

with similar findings as we get into the proximal ICA.

2:29

However, the proximal ICA over here looks like a much clearer channel than what we

2:33

can see. And we can see when we look at our waveform here

2:39

that we do not see any elevations in the peak systolic velocity, so it's within

2:44

normal limits.

2:47

Same in the mid ICA,

2:49

and then same in the distal ICA as well.

2:51

So this was consistent with 50% to 69% stenosis on the right and no significant

2:57

stenosis, less than 50%, on the left.

Report

Faculty

Constantine M. Burgan, MD

Professor, Abdominal Radiology

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Tags

Vascular Imaging

Vascular

Ultrasound

Non-infectious Inflammatory

Carotid and vertebral arteries