Author Description

This dissertation, "Applications of Non-invasive Vascular Imaging Techniques in Cardiovascular Risk Assessment and Management" by Rui, Hu,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled Applications of Non-Invasive Vascular Imaging Techniques in Cardiovascular Risk Assessment and Management Submitted by Hu Rui for the Degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in June, 2006 Non-invasive imaging techniques to detect atherosclerosis have emerged as useful tools for assessing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and surrogate endpoints for monitoring cardiovascular risk interventions. This thesis presents the results of two cross-sectional studies and one interventional study of the applications of vascular ultrasound and ophthalmoscope in assessing structure or function in macrovasculature and microvasculature. In the first cross-sectional study, the relative importance of diagnostic and prognostic values of non-invasive ultrasound assessment of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and brachial flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD) were evaluated in 298 consecutive high-risk Chinese patients admitted for coronary angiography due to chest discomfort. The mean maximum of IMT (mmIMT), but not FMD, was found to be an independent predictor for the presence of the significant coronary artery disease (CAD) of >50% stenosis, and it closely correlated with the extent of CAD as assessed by Gensini angiographic score. During a median follow up of 16 months, 36 patients (12.8%) experienced spontaneous cardiovascular events (cardiovascular death, acute myocardial infa