Arterial Remodeling and Endothelial Shear Stress Exhibit Significant Longitudinal Heterogeneity Along the Length of Coronary Plaques

Atherosclerosis is determined by both systemic risk factors and local vascular mechanisms. The arterial remodeling in response to plaque development plays a key role in atherosclerosis. Compensatory expansive remodeling is an adaptive mechanism that maintains lumen patency as a plaque develops. In c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Antoniadis, Antonios P., Papafaklis, Michail I., Takahashi, Saeko, Shishido, Koki, Andreou, Ioannis, Chatzizisis, Yiannis S., Tsuda, Masaya, Mizuno, Shingo, Makita, Yasuhiro, Domei, Takenori, Ikemoto, Tomokazu, Coskun, Ahmet U., Honye, Junko, Nakamura, Shigeru, Saito, Shigeru, Feldman, Charles L., Stone, Peter H., Edelman, Elazer R
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112775
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7832-7156
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Summary:Atherosclerosis is determined by both systemic risk factors and local vascular mechanisms. The arterial remodeling in response to plaque development plays a key role in atherosclerosis. Compensatory expansive remodeling is an adaptive mechanism that maintains lumen patency as a plaque develops. In contrast, excessive expansive remodeling, signifying an enlargement in vascular and lumen volume as a result of local plaque buildup, is a consistent attribute of high-risk plaques. Local hemodynamic factors, in particular low endothelial shear stress (ESS), is an intensely proinflammatory and proatherogenic stimulus and largely accounts for the spatially diverse distribution of atherosclerotic plaques. However, plaque, remodeling and ESS have hitherto been investigated only in the cross-sectional arterial axis and their distribution in the longitudinal axis of individual plaques has not been characterized.