Intracoronary ultrasound measurements in women with myocardial infarction without significant coronary lesions

Methods Morphologic characteristics of coronary arteries in eight women wit h myocardial infarction and angiographically normal or not significantly st enosed vessels were investigated with intracoronary ultrasound. The infarct -related vessel was assessed by three-dimensional volumetric analysis and c ompared with a control vessel from a noninfarcted area, Results Atherosclerosis was found in all infarct-related arteries, The plaq ues were predominantly soft, eccentric, poorly calcified, and with little l ipid pools or none at all, Although the average area and thickness of plaqu es and cross-sectional narrowing of the infarct-related arteries were great er than those of control arteries, there were no patognomonic characteristi cs of plaques in the infarct-related vessels. Conclusion The possibility that atherosclerosis is the main etiologic facto r for myocardial infarction can not be excluded even for women without an a ngiographically obvious coronary stenosis in the infarct-related vessels. C oron Artery Dis 11:579-584 (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.