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To ascertain the occurrence of atherosclerosis in the abdominal aorta and the initial portions of its branches, 120 consecutive postmortem examinations were made in the Tampere University Hospital. The mean age of the individuals had been 62 years. Macroscopic estimations were made of the extent and areal involvement of atherosclerosis in the abdominal aorta. The ostia and the narrowest intraluminal diameters of the first 3 cm of the celiac, superior mesenteric, inferior mesenteric, and renal and iliac arteries were determined with probes. Eighty patients (67%) had fibrous plaques or more severe signs of atherosclerosis in the abdominal aorta. Aortic atherosclerosis was strongly associated with aging. A significant association between aortic and coronary, cerebral and iliac arterial atherosclerosis was found. Thirty-five patients (29%) had stenosis in the celiac, superior mesenteric, or inferior mesenteric artery. Sixtyseven percent of the stenoses were a consequence of atherosclerosis in the aortic ostia of these arteries. Although many of the atherosclerotic plaques in the aorta are of little hemodynamic importance, they become clinically more significant when narrowing the ostia of visceral arterial branches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vascular anastomoses are usually made with sutures. Some mainly experimental studies have been published about a new method of doing the vascular anastomoses with metal clips. We studied the suitability of vascular closure staple (VCS) clip applier system for making the anastomoses in femoropopliteal and femorotibial arterial reconstruction. During an 11-month period, VCS clips were used in 17 out of 27 patients who were operated due to severe claudication or incipient gangrena of the foot. Altogether 26 anastomoses were made with VCS clips using either great saphenous vein or PTFE graft. The making of anastomosis was easy and reliable. No postoperative bleeding was noticed. All anastomoses were patent 4–6 weeks postoperatively studied by palpation and measured by ankle brachial pressure index (mean 0.96). In Duplex Doppler examination all studied patients had well patent anastomoses on an average 11 months after the operation. With VCS clip applier system, it is possible to do anastomoses in arteriosclerotic arteries like in femoropopliteal reconstructions. This method helps making reliable anastomoses more easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiovascular diseases due to atherosclerosis are the leading cause of death globally. We aimed to investigate the potentially altered gene and pathway expression in advanced peripheral atherosclerotic plaques in comparison to healthy control arteries. Gene expression analysis was performed (Illumina HumanHT-12 version 3 Expression BeadChip) for 68 advanced atherosclerotic plaques (15 aortic, 29 carotid and 24 femoral plaques) and 28 controls (left internal thoracic artery (LITA)) from Tampere Vascular Study. Dysregulation of individual genes was compared to healthy controls and between plaques from different arterial beds and Ingenuity pathway analysis was conducted on genes with a fold change (FC) > ±1.5 and false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05. 787 genes were significantly differentially expressed in atherosclerotic plaques. The most up-regulated genes were osteopontin and multiple MMPs, and the most down-regulated were cell death-inducing DFFA-like effector C and A (CIDEC, CIDEA) and apolipoprotein D (FC > 20). 156 pathways were differentially expressed in atherosclerotic plaques, mostly inflammation-related, especially related with leukocyte trafficking and signaling. In artery specific plaque analysis 50.4% of canonical pathways and 41.2% GO terms differentially expressed were in common for all three arterial beds. Our results confirm the inflammatory nature of advanced atherosclerosis and show novel pathway differences between different arterial beds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]