Distribution of plaque tissue composition in areas exposed to different levels of endothelial shear stress (ESS).

<p>Panel (A) shows an example of an early, panel (B) an example of a more advanced atherosclerotic lesion as assessed by intravascular ultrasound radiofrequency data analysis. Fibrous tissue is represented by dark green, fibrofatty tissue by light green, necrotic tissue by red and calcified tissue by white colour. We observed a significantly higher amount of fibrofatty (*) tissue in areas exposed to the lowest level of ESS (quartile 1) in comparison to low-intermediate ESS (quartile 2), intermediate-high ESS (quartile 3) or high ESS (quartile 4) (p≤0.023) (C). There was no difference in the amount of other tissue types depending on the level of ESS (p≥0.061).