Dental plaque removal is an important issue in health promotion. Toothbrushing is one of the main methods employed for such purpose, since it can prevent dental caries by means of the fluoride present in the dentifrice. Dentifrices might contain plaque disclosing agents and thus allow dental plaque observation. The aim of this study was to assess whether utilization of a plaque disclosing agent...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE An important characteristic of vulnerable plaque, intraplaque hemorrhage, may predict plaque rupture. Plaque rupture can be visible on noninvasive imaging as a disruption of the plaque surface. We investigated the association between intraplaque hemorrhage and disruption of the plaque surface. MATERIALS AND METHODS We selected the first 100 patients of the Plaque At RIS...

BACKGROUND The molecular regulation for the transition from stable to vulnerable plaque remains to be elucidated. Heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) and its metabolites have been implicated in the cytoprotective defense against oxidative injury in atherogenesis. In this study, we sought to assess the role of HO-1 in the progression toward plaque instability in carotid artery disease in patients and in a m...

Calcification is a marked pathological component in carotid artery plaque. Studies have suggested that calcification may induce regions of high stress concentrations therefore increasing the potential for rupture. However, the mechanical behaviour of the plaque under the influence of calcification is not fully understood. A method of accurately characterising the calcification coupled with the ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The main objective of this study was to evaluate CT angiographic (CTA) features that are able to predict the presence of intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) as defined by MR-IPH. METHODS One hundred sixty-seven consecutive patients (mean age 69 years, SD 12.8; 58 females) underwent both MR-IPH and CTA within 3 weeks. MR-IPH, the gold standard, was performed at 1.5 T using a ne...

Objective: Contrast-enhanced carotid ultrasonography (CEUS) is a new technique for assessing carotid artery plaques. The present study attempted to demonstrate the association between the findings of CEUS performed prior to carotid artery stenting (CAS) and plaque debris caught during CAS. Methods: This study was conducted with 16 patients (15 men, 1 woman; mean age: 74.8 years) who had undergo...

The treatment of acute coronary syndromes, including acute myocardial infarction and unstable angina, has been one of the most successful contributions in the last 20 years to the improvement of medicine. However, we are still unable to predict them, and therefore to prevent occurrence of acute myocardial infarction and/or death. Major improvements have been made in an effort to understand the ...

Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disorder that can evolve into an acute clinical event by plaque development, rupture, and thrombosis. Plaque vulnerability represents the susceptibility of a plaque to rupture and to result in an acute cardiovascular event. Nevertheless, plaque vulnerability is not an established medical diagnosis, but rather an evolving concept that has gained attention to im...

Patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy were pretreated with low-dose, oral beta carotene to determine whether the carotenoid content of plaque could be increased in vivo. Beta carotene-treated patients had a 50-fold increase in their plaque beta carotene level from 0.066 to 3.3 micrograms beta carotene/g plaque. Microscopy and microspectrophotometry demonstrated that plaque from beta carote...

The treatment of acute coronary syndromes, including acute myocardial infarction and unstable angina, has been one of the most successful contributions in the last 20 years to the improvement of medicine. However, we are still unable to predict them, and therefore to prevent occurrence of acute myocardial infarction and/or death. Major improvements have been made in an effort to understand the ...