"In vivo" imaging of atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis is a systemic and multifocal disease, which starts early in life, and that usually takes decades before overt disease eventually appears as a consequence of progressive obstruction or abrupt thrombotic occlusion. This silent course makes necessary to develop predictors of disease long before symptomatic lesions develop. Besides several classical risk factors and new emerging humoral risk predictors, imaging may constitute a formidable diagnostic and prognostic tool in order to identify presence, extension, progression (or regression) of disease as well as vulnerability of atherosclerotic lesions. This review summarizes the rapidly growing clinical and research field in imaging atherosclerosis from different perspectives opening important opportunities for timely detection and treatment of atherosclerosis.
Cardiology Dep., Ospedale San Giovanni, 6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland. agallino@bluewin.ch
Augusto
A
Gallino
Matthias
M
Stuber
Filippo
F
Crea
Erling
E
Falk
Roberto
R
Corti
John
J
Lekakis
Jürg
J
Schwitter
Paolo
P
Camici
Oliver
O
Gaemperli
Marcello
M
Di Valentino
John
J
Prior
Hector M
HM
Garcia-Garcia
Charalambos
C
Vlachopoulos
Francesco
F
Cosentino
Stephan
S
Windecker
Giovanni
G
Pedrazzini
Richard
R
Conti
François
F
Mach
Raffaele
R
De Caterina
Peter
P
Libby
D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods; D012307:Risk Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods; D014463:Ultrasonography