# Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT)

Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) is an ultrasound measurement of the combined thickness of the two inner layers (intima and media) of your carotid artery wall. It acts as a stand-in marker for early, silent atherosclerosis and vascular aging. CIMT rises steadily with age and is higher when traditional heart risk factors are present. Population studies tied it to future heart attacks, strokes, and death, and it got built into risk calculators in the early 2000s. But then the evidence cooled. A 2012 meta-analysis (Lorenz et al., Lancet) showed that tracking CIMT progression did not improve event prediction beyond the usual risk factors. So major cardiology guidelines downgraded its routine clinical use. CIMT is still widely used in research, though, as an outcome measure in intervention trials and in studies of accelerated vascular aging.

## Sources

- Lorenz MW, Markus HS, Bots ML, Rosvall M, Sitzer M. (2007). Prediction of clinical cardiovascular events with carotid intima-media thickness: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Circulation. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.628875
- Lorenz MW, Polak JF, Kavousi M, et al.. (2012). Carotid intima-media thickness progression to predict cardiovascular events in the general population (the PROG-IMT collaborative project): a meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60441-3

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_Canonical: https://longevity-switzerland.com/en/glossary/cimt · Part of Longevity Cities · Updated 2026-06-22_