Carotid Stenosis Plaque Profiling

Patients undergoing surgery for symptomatic or asymptomatic, high-grade (>50% NASCET) (62 (link)) carotid stenosis at the Department of Vascular Surgery, Karolinska University Hospital, were consecutively enrolled as part of the BiKE study and clinical data recorded on admission. Symptoms of plaque instability were defined as transitory ischemic attack, minor stroke, and amaurosis fugax. Patients without qualifying symptoms within 6 months prior to surgery were categorized as asymptomatic, and indication for carotid endarterectomy was based on results from the Asymptomatic Carotid Surgery Trial (63 (link)). Plaque classification was based solely on patient’s symptoms. The BiKE study cohort demographics, details of sample processing, and full microarray and statistical analyses have been previously described (11 (link), 64 (link)), and the microarray dataset is available from the NCBI’s Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE21545). Briefly, global gene expression profiles have been analyzed by Affymetrix HG-U133 plus 2.0 Genechip microarrays in 127 patients’ plaque tissues (n = 87 symptomatic and n = 40 asymptomatic) and n = 10 non-atherosclerotic (normal) arteries.