Fumiyuki Otsuka, Valentin Fuster, Jagat Narula, Renu Virmani
Atherosclerotic vascular disease not only remains the leading cause of death in the Western countries, but it has become the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in the low- and middle-income countries as well. Therefore, better understanding of the pathogenesis of atherosclerotic disease and its prevention are of fundamental importance. It is well known that it affects sequentially the aorta followed by coronary, carotid, peripheral, and intracerebral arteries, with some individual variability. The mechanisms of progression are similar in each of the beds, with increasing lipid accumulation in the arterial wall along with macrophages and T-cell infiltration, paucity of smooth-muscle cell proliferation and collagen deposition, and endothelial-cell dysfunction and hypercoagulability playing an important role at the time of acute manifestations of the disease...
November 2012: Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, New York