Ultrasonic evaluation of carotid artery elasticity in People Living with HIV

Objective To evaluate the quantitative parameters of carotid elasticity in healthy people and People Living With HIV(PLWH) by ultrasonic vascular elasticity quantitative technique, and to explore the feasibility of this technique in non-invasive evaluation of preclinical arterial elasticity in patients with PLWH atherosclerosis. Methods Subjects with carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) < 1.5mm were divided into three groups: healthy control group (n = 60), HIV baseline group (n = 291) and HAART group (n = 67) with HIV infection who had received highly active antiretroviral therapy ((HAART) for more than 5 years. Quantitative analysis of ultrasonic vascular elasticity was performed in all subjects, and the software automatically quantified carotid artery IMT, artery internal diameter, motion amplitude, vascular hardness coefficient and carotid artery pulse wave velocity,( caPWV), and thean to compare the ultrasonic parameters and blood lipids of each group. In HAART group, the correlation between brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) measured by traditional pressure wave method and caPWV was analyzed. Results Total Cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in HAART group were higher than those in baseline group (P < 0.017). Hardness coefficient and caPWV of bilateral carotid arteries in HAART group were higher than those in baseline group (P < 0.017), but the movement amplitude was lower than that in baseline group. In the healthy group, there was no significant difference between the left and right carotid arteries (P > 0.05). In HAART group, baPWV was linearly correlated with caPWV, with the left side correlation coefficient of 0.60 and the right side correlation coefficient of 0.57. Conclusion There is a decrease in preclinical elasticity of carotid artery in patients with PLWH who take antiviral therapy for a long time, and ultrasound vascular elasticity quantitative technique is helpful to identify this change.