BACKGROUND Cervical artery dissection is a leading cause of cerebral ischemia in young adults. Morphological investigations have shown alterations in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of affected vessel walls. As matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) play a central role in the regulation of the ECM, an increased expression of these enzymes might lead to the endothelial damage in spontaneous cervical art...

Calciphylaxis is a small vessel vasculopathy characterized by significant calcium deposition in the vessel walls and tissue of renal failure patients. The process leads to progressive, painful, ischemic wounding. Management is generally medical; however, superinfection requires surgical intervention. A case of calciphylaxis of the breast is presented. Calciphylaxis of the breast is atypical - t...

A simple mechanism for the confinement of red cells in the middle of narrow blood vessels is proposed. In the presence of a quadratic shear, red cells deform in such a way to loose foreaft symmetry and to achieve a fixed orientation with respect to the flow. This leads to a drift away from the vessel walls, when the vessel diameter goes below a critical value depending on the viscoelastic prope...

BACKGROUND To introduce a new, efficient method for vessel-wall imaging of carotid and peripheral arteries by means of a flow-sensitive 3D water-selective SSFP-echo pulse sequence. METHODS Periodic applications of RF pulses will generate two transverse steady states, immediately after and before an RF pulse; the latter being referred to as the SSFP-echo. The SSFP-echo signal for water protons...

background: recent pre-clinical and clinical studies indicate that irradiation in the dose range of 15 to 30 gy can reduce rate of restenosis in patients who have undergone an angioplasty. the use of filled balloon with radioactive solution was proposed as one of the possible intravascular irradiation techniques. materials and methods: the monte carlo n-particle transport code (mcnp4b) was used...

Calcification of vessels reduces their elasticity, affecting hemodynamic parameters of the cardiovascular system. The development of arterial hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy, ischemic heart disease or peripheral arterial disease significantly increases mortality in patients over 60 years of age. Stage of advancement and the extent of accumulation of calcium deposits in vessel walls are key ri...

• The hydraulic conductance of angiosperm xylem has been suggested to vary with changes in sap solute concentrations because of intervessel pit properties. • The magnitude of the 'ionic effect' was linked with vessel and pit dimensions in 20 angiosperm species covering 13 families including six Lauraceae species. • A positive correlation was found between ionic effect and vessel grouping parame...

A43-year-old man was admitted with progressive fatigue, shortness of breath, and orthopnea. He received an orthotopic heart transplant 13 years ago, which was complicated by multiple episodes of rejection. His last catheterization 2 years before presentation demonstrated moderate transplant vasculopathy. More recently, a nuclear perfusion scan showed a myocardial scar in the mid to basal anteri...

Cell walls are important features of plant cells that perform a number of essential functions, including providing shape to the many different cell types needed to form the tissues and organs of a plant. Forming the interface between adjacent cells, plant cell walls often play important roles in intercellular communication. Because of their surface location, plant cell walls play an important r...

The relationship between certain physicochemical properties of circulating immune complexes and their ability to localize in vessel walls during a state of increased permeability was studied. The ability to become deposited was related to the large size of complexes, rather than to their net charge or to a specific affinity between complexes and structures of vessel walls. Soluble complexes wit...