In heart attack survivors, are coronary artery plaque characteristics associated with the risk of more heart injury in the future?

Heart attack survivors who have more than one narrowed heart artery are at a particularly increased risk of another heart attack in the future. In the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow, have recently completed recruitment of one of the largest ‘heart attack’ studies with 324 heart attack patients, all of whom had detailed heart artery imaging and longer term follow-up. Since all of the scans have been collected, we now wish to study the nature of the heart artery narrowings in more detail in order to better understand the plaque characteristics (shape, irregularity etc) which are associated with patients who have had a further heart attack. In the future, the information from this project could help doctors to identify patients who may or may not be at risk of another heart attack.