Abstract #3011

Association between Incompleteness of Circle of Willis and Carotid Vulenrable Atherosclerotic Plaques: A CARE-II Study

Changwu Zhou¹, Chun Yuan^2,3, Wei Wang¹, Cheng Li⁴, and Xihai Zhao³

¹Radiology, The affiliated hospital of YangZhou University, YangZhou, China, ²Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Washington, American Samoa, ³Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, China, ⁴Radiology, Department of Radiology, Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, China

The circle of Willis (COW) is an important intracranocervical collateral circulation system. We hypothesized that the integrity of COW may affect the characteristics of carotid plaques by influencing carotid hemodynamics. This study investigated the relationship between incompleteness of COW and the compositional features of atherosclerotic plaques in carotid arteries. We found that the incompleteness of circle of Willis is associated with vulnerability of carotid artery atherosclerotic plaques. Our findings suggest that integrity of circle of Willis may play a role in occurence of high risk plaque features, particularly intraplaque hemorrhage and fibrous cap rupture.

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