More than 150 years ago, Virchow proposed that abnormalities in blood flow, vessel wall and blood components predispose to thrombosis, constituting what is now known as ‘Virchow’s triad’ for thrombogenesis. This rather simplistic view has been continually modified by new discoveries and concepts, as we now know that the process of thrombus formation requires complex interactions involving injur...

A common feature of severe sepsis is vascular inflammation and damage to the endothelium. Because platelets can be directly activated by bacteria and endotoxin, these cells may play an important role in determining the outcome of sepsis. For example, inhibiting platelet interactions with the endothelium has been shown to attenuate endothelial cell damage and improve survival during sepsis. Alth...

AIM The aim of this study was to assess coagulation markers of endothelial damage and examine new markers of endothelial activation such as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in a group of healthy pregnant women. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2, in particular, plays a major role in the degradation of the extracellular matrix confirming its essential function in both the survival (angiogenesis) a...

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease. There is growing interest in the link between vascular damage and lupus-specific inflammatory factors. Impaired endothelial repair could account for the endothelial dysfunction in this patient group. This review describes the contribution that endothelial progenitor cells could play in the ...

The endothelium is vital to the proper functioning in the heart, in particular due to its production of nitric oxide (NO) which regulates vascular tone. Damage to the endothelium contributes to the development of atherosclerosis, and hence to possible myocardial infarction and subsequent heart failure. Like most cells, endothelial cells contain mitochondria, despite their having relatively litt...

Monocrotaline (MCT) is a pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) plant toxin that produces hepatotoxicity in people and animals. Human exposure to PAs occurs through consumption of contaminated grains and herbal remedies. Injection (ip) of MCT in rats produced dose-dependent hepatic parenchymal cell injury that was significant at 200 mg/kg. Injection of 300 mg/kg MCT produced time-dependent hepatotoxicity ...

Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection has been linked to inflammatory diseases, including vascular disease and chronic transplant rejection, that involve vascular endothelial damage. We have previously shown that the host CD4(+) T-cell response to CMV antigen can produce IFNgamma and TNFalpha at levels sufficient to drive induction of fractalkine, a key marker of inflammation in endothelial cel...

OBJECTIVE The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between microalbuminuria and flow-mediated dilatation in familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS In our study, there were two groups consisting of 54 patients who were out of the attack period (43 of whom had no microalbuminuria and 11 of whom had microalbuminuria) and 40 healthy controls (M/F: 12/28)....

S. Fjord Pedersen, W. P. Paaske, T. Thiem, S. Ringgaard, S. A Thrysøe, and W. Yong Kim Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark, 1Dept. of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery T, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark, Dept. of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark, MR-center, Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark, Dept. of Cardiology, and MR-center, Aarhus Univer...