See related article, p 2439. Childhood arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) has received increasing attention as a cause of morbidity and mortality in the pediatric population. Several population-based studies in the United States demonstrate an incidence of childhood AIS at 2 cases per 100 000 children per year, with an incidence in other studies from Asia and Europe ranging from 0.2 to 7.9 per 100 ...

At present, six groups of chronic pulmonary hypertension (PH) are described. Among these, group 1 (and 1') comprises a group of diverse diseases termed pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) that have several pathophysiological, histological, and prognostic features in common. PAH is a particularly severe and progressive form of PH that frequently leads to right heart failure and premature death...

We have related experimentally induced post-cardiac transplant coronary arteriopathy to increased elastolytic activity, IL-1beta, fibronectin-mediated inflammatory and smooth muscle cell (SMC) migration, and SMC proliferation. Since our in vitro studies show that a serine elastase releases SMC mitogens and facilitates IL-lbeta induction of fibronectin, we hypothesized that administration in viv...

In congenital heart defects with left to right shunting, the increased pulmonary blood flow and pulmonary hypertension leads to structural and functional changes in the pulmonary vasculature. These changes, known as pulmonary plexogenic arteriopathy, include increased muscularization, altered vasoconstrictive and impaired vasodilatatory responses in the arterial tree, and extensive extracellula...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The familial occurrence of intracranial aneurysms and cervical artery dissections has been described in different families and supports the hypothesis that a primary arteriopathy may play a role in the pathogenesis of these disorders. Although the basis for this arteriopathy is generally not believed to be similar among cases of intracranial aneurysms and cervical artery ...