What to Expect During a CIMT

Given the serious consequences of heart disease, you want to stay one step ahead of your heart health. While there may be no way to forecast with certainty your chances of developing a cardiovascular problem, we do have a few predictive tools at our disposal, including the carotid intima media thickness ultrasound (CIMT).

At Lafferty Family Care, Dr. Scott Lafferty places great emphasis on heart health and offers a full suite of cardiac prevention assessments, including the CIMT.

In the following, we explore what the CIMT can tell us, why you may be a candidate, and what you can expect during the procedure (hint: It’s painless).

The goal of a CIMT

You have two major blood vessels in your neck called your carotid arteries, which supply your brain, neck, and face with blood. With a CIMT, we measure the thicknesses of the intima, which is the innermost layer of the artery, and the media, which is the middle layer.

In measuring these two areas of your carotid arteries, we can look for signs of carotid atherosclerotic vascular disease, which is a narrowing in the artery that prevents blood from flowing freely.

More specifically, with a CIMT, we can:

Determine the location of plaque and degree of stenosis (narrowing)
Measure the plaque from a longitudinal view
Identify the type of plaque (soft, calcified, or heterogenous)
Measure velocity in your internal carotid (which takes blood to the brain)

All too often, evidence of atherosclerosis is only found after an event like a stroke, but through a CIMT, we can better identify (and mitigate) your risks.

Ideal candidates for a CIMT

There’s no one-size-fits all screening for heart disease, but there are factors that place you more at risk for developing problems in your carotid arteries, including:

Family history of heart disease
Obesity
High cholesterol
Smoking
Diabetes
High blood pressure
Age 40+
Metabolic syndrome
A sedentary lifestyle

If you meet any of these criteria, you may want to consider a CIMT, especially as you get older and the plaque builds up.

Undergoing a CIMT

While the above information may sound awfully complicated, a CIMT is anything but a complicated experience. Since we’re using ultrasound, the procedure is absolutely painless — we simply apply a thick gel to your neck and run a transducer over the area.

There’s nothing you need to do to prepare for your CIMT, but we do advise that you leave jewelry at home (especially necklaces). You’d also do well to wear a loose-fitting shirt with an open neck so that we can gain easy access to your neck area.

We typically perform a CIMT in under 45 minutes, at which point you’re free to return home while we evaluate the images we gathered.

If we find evidence of atherosclerosis, we can put a prevention plan in place to decrease your risks for developing heart disease.

If you’d like to learn more about our cardiac prevention assessments, including the CIMT, contact our office Bentonville, Arkansas, to set up an appointment.