Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Atherosclerosis, a disease characterized by fatty deposits in the blood vessel wall, is a progressive, silent, and deadly disease. It is the primary cause of heart attacks and strokes, costing Canadians $20.9 billion each year. Early detection of atherosclerosis is essential in order to relieve its enormous societal burden. Atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries, known as coronary artery disease (CAD), is the leading cause of death in North America. A procedure known as an angiogram, used to visualize these arteries, remains the clinical standard for the diagnosis of CAD. However, its invasive and costly nature prohibits its use as a routine screening tool. Ultrasound is an inexpensive, radiation and pain-free method to monitor the progression of atherosclerosis. Our lab has previously determined that using ultrasound to detect the amount of plaque in the carotid arteries (neck vessels) can predict cardiac risk factors, such as blockages, in the heart vessels. My objective is use a safe, non-radioactive contrast agent to enhance ultrasound images and determine if it can more accurately predict heart disease. I hypothesize that establishing cut-off criteria for certain plaque characteristics will serve as a low-cost screening method to identify patients at risk for cardiac events. I will address this by performing carotid ultrasounds on patients scheduled for an angiogram and determining if there is a relationship between carotid plaque characteristics and the degree of atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries. This novel approach to plaque assessment has the potential to become an important tool for the early detection of cardiovascular disease.