What is Atherosclerosis?
Atherosclerosis is a disease where lipoproteins, which are plasma proteins that carry triglycerides and cholesterol, collect on the inner wall of arterial blood vessels. It is a chronic inflammatory response in the walls in which the lipoproteins harden and form plaque within the arteries. There are three different types of atheromatous plaque. One type is simple cholesterol crystals that build up along the wall and narrow the diameter of the artery. The second type is called an atheroma, which is a nodular accumulation of flaky, yellow material (which is composed mostly of macrophages) in the center of large plaques at the lumen of the artery. The last type of atheromatous plaque is calcification of the outer base of more advanced lesions.

Atherosclerosis is caused by many factors, some of which can be controlled by the patient. Hypertension, obesity, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, and congenital heart disease can all be individual or combined causes of atherosclerosis in a patient. Depending on where in the body plaque builds up, symptoms may include angina, heart attack, severe pain, stroke, and/or dizziness.

Significance of Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis progresses slowly and is cumulative over time, beginning with macrophage infiltration into the artery. A fatty streak results and a lesion advances to eventually create an atheroma, as shown in the figure below. This continues to advances to create a larger, more complicated lesion. Over time, if the lesion is not treated, the plaque will suddenly rupture and form a thrombus that severely slows down, or even stops blood flow. This can lead to an infarction, which is death of the tissues feeding off of the artery within five minutes if it is not tended to immediately.

In the United States alone, atherosclerosis leads to the death of almost 15,000 people every year. It is also the cause of hospitalization for 20,000 patients per year and over 730,000 physician office visits per year.

Current Treatments
Current treatments include improvements in diet, cholesterol reduction medication, anticoagulate medication, blood pressure medication, surgical procedures and sometimes even gene therapy. Our medical device plans to make improvements upon the current surgical procedures, which are endarterectomy, angioplasty, bypass surgery, and thrombolytic therapy.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.