Atherosclerosis velocity and its prognostic value

Abstract

In most cases atherosclerosis is the underlying cause of vascular diseases, including heart disease and stroke. It is believed that endothelial injury is the earliest change in the artery wall and that this precedes the formation of lesions of
atherosclerosis. In this review article, we summarize the existing evidence regarding atherosclerosis velocity and discuss the importance of this issue. We explore the evidence that encompasses all the three essential atherosclerosisrelated factors, namely time/ duration of atherosclerosis progression, plaque volume, and plaque vulnerability, in one
study. Atherosclerosis velocity includes the time-dependent development of the plaque from endothelial injury to acute
arterial thrombosis. All previous investigations have focused only on the probability of plaque regression at the expense
of almost neglecting the parameter of time. We suggest that future studies could be designed based on the probable association between statin therapy and atherosclerosis velocity reduction. The concept of atherosclerosis velocity should be
applied in further experiments, especially in experimental models. If investigators focus on the concept of “time” for
atherosclerosis development, it may result in considerable prevention of atherosclerosis-related morbidity/mortality