10 mhz transducer

Measurements of common CIMT by ultrasonography of the right common carotid artery was carried out using an Ethiroli Tiny‐16a (Surabi Biomedical Instrumentation, Coimbatore, India) in APCAPS, and LOGIQ Book XP with a 10‐MHz transducer (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA) in NaIS. The protocol used has been described in detail elsewhere.13, 15 The mean CIMT was calculated as the mean of right CIMT measurements with carotid plaque excluded. Although AtheroEdge Software in the original APCAPS study and Intima Scope Software (Cross Media, Tokyo, Japan) were used to measure mean CIMT, we re‐evaluated the mean CIMT of APCAPS participants using Intima Scope to avoid the systematic difference of CIMT in the two different types of software.16 Arterial stiffness was evaluated as PWV by the Vicorder system (Skidmore Medical Limited, Bristol, UK) in APCAPS, and cardio‐ankle vascular index (CAVI) by the VaSera system (Fukuda Denshi, Tokyo, Japan) in NaIS.

Measurement of CIMT by ultrasonography of the left and right carotid arteries was performed by two medical doctors (NT and MN) using a LOGIQ Book XP with a 10-MHz transducer (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA) that was programmed with the IMT measurement software Intimascope (Cross Media Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) [13 (link)]. The protocol that was used has been described in detail elsewhere [14 (link)]. The values for right and left CIMT without plaque measurement were calculated, and the higher CIMT value was used for the analysis. Based on previous studies [8 (link),15 (link),16 (link)], we defined carotid atherosclerosis as a CIMT ≥1.1 mm. Intra-observer variation agreement for CIMT (NT, n = 32) was 0.91 (P value (P) <0.01), and inter-observer variation agreement (NT vs. MN, n = 41) was 0.78 (P < 0.01).

A trained interviewer obtained information on clinical characteristics. Bodyweight and height were measured with an automatic body composition analyzer (BF-220; Tanita, Tokyo, Japan) and BMI (kg/m²) was calculated. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) was recorded at rest.
A fasting blood sample was collected. TSH, free T3, free T4, and TPO-Ab were measured by standard procedures at the LSI Medience Corporation (Tokyo, Japan). HbA1c, triglycerides (TG), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc) were also measured using standard procedures at SRL, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan).
Detecting thyroid cysts are identified by experienced technicians using a LOGIQ Book XP with a 10-MHz transducer (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA). A thyroid cyst (maximum diameter ≥ 2.0 mm) without a solid component was defined as a thyroid cyst for this study. The positive status of TPO-Ab (+) was defined at and above 16 IU/mL.