Relationship of raised atherosclerotic lesions to fatty streaks in 19 location-race groups.
Atherosclerosis was graded by gross inspection of Sudan-stained arterial intimal surfaces estimating percent surface involved by raised lesions (R), fatty streaks (F), and no lesions (N). The right coronary artery and abdominal aorta of over 20,000 cases, 25-69 years of age, from 19 location-race groups were used. Cases were classed by sex, broad cause of death categories, and age. Raised lesions expressed as a percentage of all types of lesions was found at each age to have approximately a constant ratio to the percentage surface involved with all types of lesions. This was true over the range of surface involvement within age, sex, and cause of death classes, but between classes the ratio was not constant. Comparisons among location-race groups indicated marked differences in mean involvement by all types of lesions and by raised lesions expressed as a percentage of all lesions. The variation among groups in the fraction of raised among lesions was found to be partly related to parallel variability in average involvement by all types of lesions. However, some groups stood out as having too much or too little of raised lesions for their degree of involvement by all types of lesions. For instance Manila had extensive raised lesions with little fatty streaking while Bogota had more fatty streaking but not so much of raised lesions. In the sequence N yields F yields R, Class A causes act at both stages of atherogenesis while Class B causes act at stage I or stage II but not both. Class A and Class B causes both revealed important variation among location-race, sex, and cause of death groups.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001161:Arteriosclerosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D044383:Black People; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D013020:South America; D014481:United States; D044465:White People; D001741:Black or African American