title: [The vascular and metabolic mechanisms of the development of the atherosclerotic plaque].
abstract: Atherosclerosis is a degenerative disease responsible for the majority of deaths in the western populations. According to the idea of the reaction to injury the endothelial cells lining the vascular wall are exposed to repeated insults to their integrity. The injury results in a loss of functional attributes of endothelium and leads to a sequence of events including platelet adherence and aggregation, release of platelet granular components, migration and proliferation of medial smooth muscle cells into the intima. Examples of types of injury include chemical injury, as in hyperlipidemia, or mechanical stress associated with critical changes in vascular flow. Atherosclerosis has been considered a disease primarily concerned with lipid metabolism by regarding the intramural caseous material of atheromatous arteries as the sine qua non of the disease. The limitation of the lipid theory is that the conventional cholesterol-fed animal does not exactly reproduces the pathology of atherosclerosis. An alternative theory suggests that atherosclerosis is induced by mechanical fatigue which produces the progressive change in structure and mechanical properties of the vessel wall. In this view the lipid accumulation is a secondary phenomenon, the consequence of concomitant biochemical alterations of mural constituents. The hypothesis of reaction to injury provides a plausible explanation for the lesion formation and the different theories of atherogenesis are not mutually exclusive.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Cardiologia, Università degli Studi, Cagliari.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mercuro
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cherchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001161:Arteriosclerosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D050356:Lipid Metabolism
vernacular_title: Meccanismi vascolari e metabolici di sviluppo della placca aterosclerotica.