Follow-Up Study Investigates Progression of Vascular Plaque

A new large-scale study in the US that will investigate the progression of vascular atherosclerotic plaque in patients from a larger, previous study is slated to begin.

The new study will look at disease progression in at least 1,000 patients from a previous study that recruited 7,687 participants between the years 2008 and 2009. Researchers in the previous study used a novel ultrasound imaging method to identify atherosclerotic plaque disease in carotid arteries, and studied how this could affect the risk of the participants developing a heart attack or stroke.

The start of the new BioImage-2 study in Florida and Illinois was announced by the Mount Sinai Hospital (ISMMS; New York, NK, USA) and BioImage-2 (Lexington, MA, USA). The study will begin in September 2017 and continue for one year. The study is intended to promote research into carotid ultrasound imaging methods that can help clinicians decide how best to prevent heart attacks and strokes. The new study is intended to develop and test tools for bringing such imaging techniques into routine clinical practice and provide tailored preventive therapies.

Principal investigator of the BioImage-2 study, Director of Mount Sinai Heart, and Physician-in-Chief, Valentin Fuster, MD, said "Today a broad range of options exist for prevention of atherosclerotic vessel disease, which may lead to heart attack and stroke. If we can identify and characterize subclinical disease early and monitor this over the years, this may one day help us to better identify those who stand to gain most from the intensive preventive therapy options now available."