An evaluation of methods for imaging and quantifying coronary and carotid lumen stenosis and atherosclerosis.

Background. Methods for imaging arterial disease manifest by compromise or the lumen or thickening or the walls are undergoing continuing development and refinement. Methods used for many years to image arterial lumens (e.g., angiography, Doppler ultrasound) are of greatest utility for assessing the relation of arterial disease to clinical outcome. Newer methods (B-mode ultrasound) visualize arterial walls and thus provide qualitatively different information that has not previously been available to investigators and that is particularly suitable for studies of the relation of risk factors to arterial disease