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Chinese Journal of Medical Ultrasound (Electronic Edition) ›› 2025, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (11): 1071-1079. doi: 10.3877/cma.j.issn.1672-6448.2025.11.011

• Peripheral Vascular Ultrasound • Previous Articles    

Assessment of carotid plaque vulnerability based on contrast enhanced ultrasound and construction of a stroke risk prediction model

Junjie Cao1, Zhichao Yao1, Yuqi Zeng1, Jin Zheng1, Yimin E1, Ziyi Tan1, Dayong Zhou1, Lili Zhang,2()   

  1. 1 Department of Vascular Surgery, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Suzhou Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Gusu College of Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou 215000, China
    2 Department of Ultrasound, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Suzhou Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Gusu College of Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou 215000, China
  • Received:2025-04-21 Online:2025-11-01 Published:2026-02-12
  • Contact: Lili Zhang

Abstract:

Objective

To evaluate the clinical value of intraplaque contrast agent diffusion direction and intraplaque neovascularization (IPN) grading on contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in assessing carotid plaque vulnerability and predicting the risk of symptomatic stroke, and to construct a multiparametric predictive model to improve the identification of high-risk individuals.

Methods

A total of 84 patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy (CEA) at Suzhou Municipal Hospital between January 2023 and December 2024 were prospectively enrolled. According to the occurrence of symptomatic stroke events or not, the patients were divided into a symptomatic stroke group (n=48) and an asymptomatic group (n=36). Preoperative conventional ultrasound and CEUS were performed to assess plaque morphology, contrast agent diffusion direction, and IPN grade. Postoperative pathological specimens were collected to evaluate microvessel density (MVD) and the proportion of immature microvessels (MVR). Spearman rank correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between CEUS features and pathological characteristics. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors for symptomatic stroke, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to assess the discriminative performance of different predictive models.

Results

IPN grade was significantly positively correlated with both MVD (r=0.782, P<0.001) and MVR (r=0.508, P<0.001). Plaques showing an "inside-out" contrast agent diffusion pattern exhibited significantly higher incidences of fibrous cap rupture and intraplaque hemorrhage compared with non-inside-out diffusion plaques (87.50% vs 55.56% and 87.50% vs 66.67%, respectively; P<0.05). Logistic regression revealed that IPN grade 3 (odds ratio [OR]= 4.36, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.50-12.67, P<0.01) and "inside-out" diffusion pattern (OR=3.88, 95%CI: 1.43-10.57, P<0.01) were independent risk factors for symptomatic stroke events. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the combined predictive model was 0.806, which was higher than that of either IPN grade 3 (AUC=0.751) or "inside-out" diffusion pattern alone (AUC=0.673).

Conclusion

CEUS-based assessment of contrast agent diffusion direction and IPN grading can effectively reflect carotid plaque vulnerability and demonstrates an appreciated ability to predict the risk of symptomatic stroke. The multiparametric model based on these two indicators shows good discriminative performance in preoperative risk assessment and screening of high-risk stroke populations, indicating potential clinical applicability.

Key words: Carotid plaque, Contrast enhanced ultrasound, Intraplaque neovascularization, Vulnerability, Stroke

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