title: Revisiting cardiovascular calcification: A multifaceted disease requiring a multidisciplinary approach.
abstract: The presence of cardiovascular calcification significantly predicts patients' morbidity and mortality. Calcific mineral deposition within the soft cardiovascular tissues disrupts the normal biomechanical function of these tissues, leading to complications such as heart failure, myocardial infarction, and stroke. The realization that calcification results from active cellular processes offers hope that therapeutic intervention may prevent or reverse the disease. To this point, however, no clinically viable therapies have emerged. This may be due to the lack of certainty that remains in the mechanisms by which mineral is deposited in cardiovascular tissues. Gaining new insight into this process requires a multidisciplinary approach. The pathological changes in cell phenotype that lead to the physicochemical deposition of mineral and the resultant effects on tissue biomechanics must all be considered when designing strategies to treat cardiovascular calcification. In this review, we overview the current cardiovascular calcification paradigm and discuss emerging techniques that are providing new insight into the mechanisms of ectopic calcification.
authors.affiliation: Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences and Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Electronic address: JDHUTCHESON@partners.org.
authors.forename: Joshua D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Hutcheson
authors.affiliation: Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences and Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Goettsch
authors.affiliation: Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences and Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
authors.forename: Maximillian A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.affiliation: Center for Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Sciences and Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Electronic address: eaikawa@rics.bwh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aikawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001021:Aortic Valve / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002114:Calcinosis / Q000378:metabolism*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D003094:Collagen / Q000378:metabolism; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D058226:Plaque, Atherosclerotic / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen
keywords: Aortic valve disease; Atherosclerosis; Cardiovascular calcification; Chronic renal disease; Microcalcification