Early decrease in carotid plaque lipid content as assessed by magnetic resonance imaging during treatment of rosuvastatin

BMC Cardiovascular Disorders

Research Article

Hong-Mei Wu¹  Peng Gao¹  Ping Ye¹  Ruixue Du¹  Wen-Xiu Leng¹  Xue-Qiao Zhao²  Jianming Cai³  Qing-Jun Wang³  Dan-Qing Liu³  Lin Ma³ 

[1] Department of Geriatric Cardiology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28, Fuxing Road, 100853, Beijing, China;Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Radiology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28, Fuxing Road, 100853, Beijing, China;

关键词: Atherosclerosis;    Plaque lipid content;    Statin;    Magnetic resonance imaging;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2261-14-83

 received in 2014-01-19, accepted in 2014-06-26,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundStatin therapy has shown to deplete atherosclerotic plaque lipid content and induce plaque regression. However, how early the plaque lipid depletion can occur with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) lowering in humans in vivo has not been fully described.MethodsWe enrolled 43 lipid treatment naïve subjects with asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis and LDL-C ≥ 100 and ≤ 250 mg/dl. Rosuvastatin 5–20 mg/day was used to lower LDL-C levels to < 80 mg/dl. Lipid profile and carotid MRI scans were obtained at baseline, 3, 12, and 24 months. Carotid plaque lipid-rich necrotic core (LRNC) and plaque burden were measured and compared between baseline and during treatment.ResultsAmong the 32 subjects who completed the study, at 3 months, an average dose of rosuvastatin of 11 mg/day lowered LDL-C levels by 47% (125.2 ± 24.4 mg/dl vs. 66.7 ± 17.3 mg/dl, p < 0.001). There were no statistically significant changes in total wall volume, percent wall volume or lumen volume. However, LRNC volume was significantly decreased by 7.9 mm3, a reduction of 7.3% (111.5 ± 104.2 mm3 vs. 103.6 ± 95.8 mm3, p = 0.044). Similarly, % LRNC was also significantly decreased from 18.9 ± 11.9% to 17.9 ± 11.5% (p = 0.02) at 3 months. Both LRNC volume and % LRNC continued to decrease moderately at 12 and 24 months, although this trend was not significant.ConclusionsAmong a small number of lipid treatment naïve subjects, rosuvastatin therapy may induce a rapid and lasting decrease in carotid plaque lipid content as assessed by MRI.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.Gov numbers NCT00885872

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Du et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.