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Topic: Vulnerable plaque

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	Vulnerable Plaque Research at the Texas Heart Institute
		Vulnerable plaque is a type of fatty buildup in an artery thought to be caused by inflammation.
		The plaque is covered by a thin, fibrous cap that upon rupture may lead to the formation of a blood clot and, ultimately, occlusion of the artery.
		Vulnerable patients' risk of a heart attack is greater if their blood has an increased tendency to create clots or if their heart cells have a natural tendency to develop electrical instability; in patients with electrical instability, vulnerable plaques are more likely to rupture and cause cardiac arrest and sudden death.
	texasheart.org /Research/vplaque1.cfm (291 words)

	NIH Guide: MOLECULAR AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE VULNERABLE PLAQUE (RFA: HL-98-003)
		Atherosclerotic plaques that are vulnerable to rupture have a dense infiltrate of macrophages and, to a lesser extent, lymphocytes, within a fibrous cap that overlies a crescentic hypocellular mass of lipids.
		Force imbalances within the plaque volume or in the area of stenosis, due, for example, to sudden changes in intraluminal coronary pressure or tone, or bending and twisting of an artery during each heart contraction, may be important physical factors that influence the probability of plaque vulnerability.
		Studies of vulnerable plaques in the abdominal aorta and carotid arteries may be especially useful because of their accessibility with non-invasive imaging techniques and the potential for pathologic and histologic validation.
	grants.nih.gov /grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-HL-98-003.html (4626 words)

	Plaque Buildup In Heart Could Be Deadly - Health
		Doctors say the biggest culprit is a silent buildup of soft plaque in the walls of the artery.
		The problem is vulnerable plaque cannot be seen in conventional tests.
		Detailed color images of the walls of the artery are produced on a monitor, so that even the plaque that's buried inside the arterial wall become visible.
	www.nbc4.tv /health/4749254/detail.html (423 words)

	Vulnerable Plaque - Texas Heart Institute Heart Information Center
		For many years, doctors have thought that the main cause of a heart attack or stroke was the buildup of fatty plaque within an artery leading to the heart or brain.
		In fact, vulnerable plaque may be buried inside the artery wall and may not always bulge out and block the blood flow through the artery.
		They also found that vulnerable plaque was more than just debris that clogs an artery, but that it was filled with different cell types that help with blood clotting.
	www.texasheart.org /HIC/Topics/Cond/vulplaq.cfm (991 words)

	Prescient Medical (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The rupture of this type of vulnerable plaque causes the release of the plaque¹s contents a liquid pool of fat, cholesterol, and other debris into the blood stream, where they quickly coagulate to form a blood clot that can block blood flow to the heart and cause a heart attack.
		Besides the plaque prone to rupture described above, two other types of plaques are suspected to be vulnerable plaques: plaque prone to erosion, and plaque with a calcified nodule.
		It is important to note that these immune system processes are believed to contribute significantly to vulnerable plaque rupture, as well as the coagulation cascade that rapidly creates a blood clot and causes a heart attack.
	www.prescientmedical.com /VulnerablePlaque/what_is.php (383 words)

	Thermocore - Vulnerable Plaque
		The so-called "vulnerable plaques" typically comprise a lipid-rich core in the central portion of the thickened intima.
		It is logical to infer the presence of inflammation in unstable, vulnerable coronary plaques, one result of which is for the area to have an altered temperature profile.
		It therefore follows that if vulnerable plaque can be detected by the generation of thermal maps of the coronary arteries, then it would for the first time be possible to identify patients in greatest danger of suffering an acute myocardial infarction.
	www.thermocoremed.com /vplaque.htm (519 words)

	Guidant announces plans to initiate vulnerable plaque study
		Guidant has announced plans to conduct a study designed to increase clinical understanding of "vulnerable" plaques - lipid-rich coronary lesions that suddenly rupture - that may cause most heart attacks.
		However, the vast majority of heart attacks are now believed to be triggered by the rupture of a lipid-rich vulnerable plaque hidden under the surface of the artery wall, causing blood to clot on the plaque and suddenly block the artery.
		Vulnerable plaques are not readily evident in angiograms either, as the hidden plaque may not yet block the vessel.
	www.news-medical.net /?id=5099 (523 words)

	Guidant Newsroom
		As a meaningful body of scientific knowledge about vulnerable plaque is built, physicians will be able to better predict and prevent heart attacks that take millions of lives each year without warning.
		Vulnerable plaques are not readily evident in angiograms either, because they may not yet block the vessel.
		Experts agree that the ability to detect vulnerability — to predict future events — is the linchpin that will enable clinical research to move forward in the search for preventive therapies.
	www.guidant.com /webapp/emarketing/newsroom/newspg.jsp?dir=plaque&file=prospect (884 words)

	Executive Briefing: Vulnerable Plaque: Medical Device's New Biological Frontier
		Though barely on the clinical radar screen just a few years ago, vulnerable plaque has been attracting proponents in surprising numbers—despite the fact that it requires cardiologists to throw out decades of conventional thinking about the sources and causes of coronary artery disease.
		Vulnerable plaque helps explain why patients who historically would have been deemed to be asymptomatic suffer AMIs: heart attacks occur not because of structural problems in the artery, but because of biological processes that occur there.
		Indeed, as more and more research reveals vulnerable plaque to be a systemic disease rather than a local problem, traditional device strategies, which approach coronary disease as a problem in a focal, culprit lesion, become less relevant.
	www.windhover.com /contents/monthly/exex/e_2002800243.htm (803 words)

	Is the Concept of Vulnerable Plaque Relevant to Practitioners?
		Furthermore, the natural history of a presumed vulnerable plaque is unknown and clinical trials utilizing this strategy of identification and therapeutic intervention are presently lacking.
		With the concept of “vulnerable” plaque not nearly as straightforward as once thought, there are challenges to creating a local interventional approach for asymptomatic vulnerable plaques.
		A second challenge: a lesion-specific local intervention requires that the number of vulnerable plaques in each patient needs to be known and the number of such lesions need to be limited.
	www.cardiosource.com /rapidnewssummaries/index.asp?EID=22&DoW=Mon&SumID=152 (1464 words)

	Abbott Announces Completion of Enrollment in Groundbreaking Vulnerable Plaque Study
		ABBOTT PARK, Illinois, August 30, 2006 – Abbott today announced completion of enrollment in a landmark study designed to increase clinical understanding of “vulnerable” plaque – a lipid-rich coronary plaque that suddenly ruptures – believed to be the cause of most heart attacks.
		However, the vast majority of heart attacks are now believed to be triggered by the rupture of a lipid-rich vulnerable plaque hidden under a thin fibrous cap on the artery wall, causing blood to clot on the plaque and suddenly blocking the artery.
		The mission of Abbott Vascular's Vulnerable Plaque program, founded in 1999, is to advance knowledge of early diagnosis of plaque that may be the cause of subsequent heart attacks; accelerate the development of vulnerable plaque diagnostics; and explore new therapies that could save the lives of patients suffering from cardiac and vascular disease.
	www.abbott.com /global/url/pressRelease/en_US/60.5:5/Press_Release_0344.htm (564 words)

	PROGRAMS \| vulnerable plaque
		The causes of most heart attacks and strokes are vulnerable coronary and carotid plaques that are not detectable by current diagnostic methods.
		It is generally thought that the most common histologic type of vulnerable plaque is a lesion with a thin fibrous cap, a large lipid pool, and abundant macrophages.
		The goal of the CIMIT Vulnerable Plaque Program is to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality by bringing together scientists, engineers and clinicians to accelerate the development and applications of methods to detect and treat vulnerable plaque.
	www.cimit.org /vplaque.html (733 words)

	4/29/03 Vulnerable plaque gets makeover thanks to MR
		"The term 'vulnerable' in the context of coronary plaques was originally intended to provide a morphologic description consistent with lesions prone to rupture," she said during a Sunday symposium at the American Society of Neuroradiology meeting in Washington, DC.
		Her studies, however, have found that vulnerable plaque is a frequent finding in patients dying suddenly with acute rupture, which led to the more definitive terminology.
		For carotid plaques, which are less lipid-rich and more stenotic, and peripheral circulatory plaques, which tend to be hypercoagulative, he applies the general term "high-risk" plaques.
	www.diagnosticimaging.com /dinews/2003042901.shtml (723 words)

	RSNA: New MRI Can Show "Soft" Plaque In Coronary Arteries
		The study showed that it is possible to visualize the shape of the plaque inside the arteries, and that even though blood flow may be adequate in arteries with plaque buildup, having vulnerable plaques puts patients at risk for heart attack, and should be treated.
		In the last decade, researchers have found that some plaques are more vulnerable to breaking off from the walls of the artery and prompting a blood clot, which travels to the heart and can cause heart attack.
		It's unclear why certain people may be more prone to developing vulnerable plaques, but it's believed to be related to a number of factors, including diet and genetics.
	www.docguide.com /dg.nsf/PrintPrint/C3988AD722AF671A8525683C007378B3 (721 words)

	The Journal of Invasive Cardiology
		Plaques that rupture are associated with the thin friable caps, principally due to lack of collagen and collagenous matrix proteins.3
		In fact, many vulnerable plaques are invisible angiographically due to their small size and compensatory enlargement (positive remodeling) of the vessel wall.
		Vulnerable plaques may or may not limit blood flow and thus the use of pressure/flow measurements for plaque assessment has important clinical implications.
	www.invasivecardiology.com /article/232 (4945 words)

	Literature Review - 12 September 2002 - Challenging the "single vulnerable plaque" theory in unstable angina
		The commonly accepted theory that inflammation within a single vulnerable plaque is responsible for the development of unstable coronary syndromes may be on its way out the door.
		The findings from this study "challenge the concept of a single vulnerable plaque in unstable coronary syndromes," write Buffon et al, and the authors add that their results are not solitary findings.
		It has been known for a long time that plaque rupture, or plaque erosion, is what leads to the conversion from silent atherosclerosis to acute coronary events through the triggering of thrombosis in the coronary arteries.
	www.atherothrombosis.org /literature/36.cfm (1012 words)

	Blood Vessel
		There are already natural formulations that balance the blood itself, remove the elements that attack and rupture the vulnerable plaque, repair existing artery lesions, and prevent their further formation.
		Most of us are familiar with the hard, obstructing kind of arterial plaque and the role it plays in artherosclerosis—hardening of the arteries.”; This is the narrowing of arterial blood channels due to the build-up of cholesterol deposits on the interior of the artery walls.
		This familiar plaque is easily seen on an angiogram, in which opaque dye is injected into the heart arteries and sequential X-rays are taken of its progress through the blood channels.
	www.gordonresearch.com /articles_cardiovascular/blood_vessel.html (872 words)

	Pharmacyclics Announces Presentation of Data Using Novel Texaphyrin Compounds To Visualize Vulnerable Plaque
		These lesions, known as vulnerable plaque, are prone to rupture causing acute thrombosis and obstruction of blood flow.
		Vulnerable plaque is not readily detected by current imaging techniques such as angiography since it usually does not limit blood flow.
		A limitation to clinical investigation with new treatments for vulnerable plaque has been the inability to image the disease and monitor response to therapy.
	www.prnewswire.com /cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-24-2004/0002180009&EDATE= (1416 words)

	Terminology for high-risk and vulnerable coronary artery plaques -- Schaar et al. 25 (12): 1077 -- European Heart ...
		plaque, to a thrombosed plaque, and to clinical events is presented.
		The atherosclerotic plaque to the left (circumflex branch) is fibrotic and partly calcified whereas the plaque to the right (marginal branch) is lipid-rich with a non-occluding thrombus superimposed.
		Plaque blush, branch location, and calcification are angiographic predictors of progression of mild to moderate coronary stenoses.
	eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org /cgi/content/full/25/12/1077 (2692 words)

	Executive Briefing: The Coming of Age of Vulnerable Plaque
		The result is an explosion of research on the role of inflammation in heart disease and the identification and characterization of plaques to predict which are the most thromobogenic and most likely to rupture.
		So far, no drug is indicated for prevention of the rupture or formation of vulnerable plaque, but studies underway indicate that old standbys like the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins may lower lipid levels and reduce inflammation, allowing lesions to repair themselves.
		Stenting vessels to prevent plaque erosion and applying heat to the lesion to stop further cell growth are also under consideration.
	www.windhoverinfo.com /contents/monthly/exex/e_2000900196.htm (925 words)

	Vulnerable Plaque -- The New Kid On The Block!
		Plaques become a major concern when they grow large enough to obstruct blood flow to the heart, brain or other organs, or become fragile and prone to rupture.
		Plaques that rupture form blood clots that can break off and clog a vessel that feeds the heart or brain, resulting in a heart attack or stroke.
		Patients who have been diagnosed as having vulnerable plaques are treated to reduce the changes that blood clots can form, if indeed their plaques rupture.
	www.chelationtherapyonline.com /articles/p204.htm (3707 words)

	Today in Cardiology: IVUS visualizes vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Amount of vulnerable plaque is often underestimated by angiography.
		Nissen said that the amount of vulnerable plaque is underestimated with angiography.
		That plaque could be differentiated from plaque with high calcium content and low risk of rupture.
	www.cardiologytoday.com /199812/ivus.asp?old=never (792 words)

	Basic aspects of plaque vulnerability -- Lafont 89 (10): 1262 -- Heart
		The deep intima of the eroded plaque often shows extracellular lipid pools, but necrotic cores are uncommon; when present, the necrotic core does not communicate with the luminal thrombus.
		Plaque erosion is defined as an abrasion of the endothelium
		Plaque erosion is a major substrate for coronary thrombosis in acute myocardial infarction.
	heart.bmj.com /cgi/content/full/89/10/1262 (3309 words)

	Abbott Announces Completion of Enrollment in Groundbreaking Vulnerable Plaque Study - Health - RedOrbit
		ABBOTT PARK, Ill., Aug. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott today announced completion of enrollment in a landmark study designed to increase clinical understanding of "vulnerable" plaque -- a lipid-rich coronary plaque that suddenly ruptures -- believed to be the cause of most heart attacks.
		The vulnerable plaque program leverages Abbott's expertise in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and interventional therapies.
		Abbott Vascular's Vulnerable Plaque program was acquired through Abbott's acquisition of Guidant's Vascular Intervention and Endovascular Solutions businesses in April 2006.
	www.redorbit.com /news/health/638206/abbott_announces_completion_of_enrollment_in_groundbreaking_vulnerable_plaque_study/index.html?source=r_health (541 words)

	Characterizing Vulnerable Plaque Features With Intravascular Elastography -- Schaar et al. 108 (21): 2636 -- Circulation
		In histology, a vulnerable plaque was defined as a plaque whose
		In the elastogram, a vulnerable plaque is indicated by a high strain on the surface.
		Characterisation of atherosclerotic plaque by spectral analysis of intravascular ultrasound: an in vitro methodology.
	circ.ahajournals.org /cgi/content/full/108/21/2636 (3983 words)

	California Scientists Attempt Nanomachines Against Arterial Plaque, The World Health Network - Anti-Aging and Longevity
		Recent studies have shown that plaque exists in two modes: non-vulnerable and vulnerable.
		Blood passing through an artery exerts a shearing force and can cause vulnerable plaque to rupture, which often leads to occlusion and myocardial infarction.
		As many as 60 - 80 percent of sudden cardiac deaths can be attributed to the physical rupture of vulnerable plaque.
	www.worldhealth.net /p/california-scientists-attempt-nanomachines-against-arterial-plaque-2005-06-16.html (625 words)

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