A simplified method to quantitate atherosclerosis in the rabbit aorta.
A simple method to quantitatively evaluate atherosclerosis in the rabbit aorta by measuring macroscopic lesion areas (%) was attempted in the present study. Ten female New Zealand white rabbits were fed on a cholesterol-rich diet (5/1000 g of food) during 4 months. Five of them were oophorectomized at the beginning and all were sacrificed at the end. Total levels of cholesterol increased from 50.7+/-14.7 mg/dl to 782.8+/-296.0. No significant differences were observed between oophorectomized and intact rabbits. At 4 months, the cholesterol-rich diet caused in both, intact and oophorectomized rabbits, atherosclerotic lesions affecting 17 and 46% of the aortic surface, respectively. This method may be more practical, easy and useful for quantitative evaluation of aortic atherosclerosis in a large number of rabbits, than histological observations of serial sections of rabbit's aortas.
Blümel
J E
JE
Climacteric Unit, Barros Luco-Tradeau Hospital, Santiago, Chile.
Castelo-Branco
C
C
Sanjuán
A
A
González
P
P
Moyano
C
C
Iturriaga
T M
TM
Gonzalez
R
R
Romero
S
S
Cano
A
A
D000818:Animals; D001011:Aorta; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D006937:Hypercholesterolemia; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D010052:Ovariectomy; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011817:Rabbits; D012720:Severity of Illness Index