<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>With coronary artery disease (CAD) projected to remain the leading cause of global mortality, prevention strategies seem to be the only effective approach able to reduce the burden and improve mortality and morbidity. At this moment, diagnostic strategies focus mainly on symptomatic patients, ignoring the occurrence of major cardiovascular events as the only manifestation of CAD. As two thirds of fatal myocardial infarction are resulting from plaque rupture, an approach based on the “vulnerable plaque” concept is mandatory in order to improve patient diagnosis, treatment, and, by default, prognosis. Given that the main studies focus on a plaque-centered approach, this is a prospective observational study that will perform a complex assessment of the features that characterize unstable coronary lesions, in terms of both local assessment via specific coronary computed tomography angiography markers of coronary plaque vulnerability and systemic approach based on serological markers of systemic inflammation in patients proved to be “vulnerable” by developing acute cardiovascular events.</p></abstract>

With coronary artery disease (CAD) projected to remain the leading cause of global mortality, prevention strategies seem to be the only effective approach able to reduce the burden and improve mortality and morbidity. At this moment, diagnostic strategies focus mainly on symptomatic patients, ignoring the occurrence of major cardiovascular events as the only manifestation of CAD. As two thirds of fatal myocardial infarction are resulting from plaque rupture, an approach based on the “vulnerable plaque” concept is mandatory in order to improve patient diagnosis, treatment, and, by default, prognosis. Given that the main studies focus on a plaque-centered approach, this is a prospective observational study that will perform a complex assessment of the features that characterize unstable coronary lesions, in terms of both local assessment via specific coronary computed tomography angiography markers of coronary plaque vulnerability and systemic approach based on serological markers of systemic inflammation in patients proved to be “vulnerable” by developing acute cardiovascular events.

Impact of Coronary Plaque Vulnerability on Acute Cardiovascular Events – Design of a CT-based 2-year Follow-up Study

Center of Advanced Research in Multimodality Cardiac Imaging, Cardio Med Medical Center

University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology

Clinic of Cardiology, Emergency Clinical County Hospital

Journal of Interdisciplinary Medicine

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

With coronary artery disease (CAD) projected to remain the leading cause of global mortality, prevention strategies seem to be the only effective approach able...

Impact of Coronary Plaque Vulnerability on Acute Cardiovascular Events – Design of a CT-based 2-year Follow-up Study

Published Online: Aug 02, 2019

Page range: 64 - 71

Received: Apr 30, 2019

Accepted: Jun 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jim-2019-0015

Keywords
vulnerable plaque, acute cardiovascular event, systemic inflammation, vulnerability markers

© 2019 Noémi Mitra et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Impact of Coronary Plaque Vulnerability on Acute Cardiovascular Events – Design of a CT-based 2-year Follow-up Study

Published Online: Aug 02, 2019

Page range: 64 - 71

Received: Apr 30, 2019

Accepted: Jun 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jim-2019-0015

Keywordsvulnerable plaque, acute cardiovascular event, systemic inflammation, vulnerability markers

© 2019 Noémi Mitra et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
vulnerable plaque, acute cardiovascular event, systemic inflammation, vulnerability markers