PATH 300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, Transient Ischemic Attack, Cerebral Circulation
11 Mar 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Atherosclerosis is the #1 cause of death in canada and the rest of the developed world. It is responsible for myocardial infarcts, stroke, aneurysms and peripheral vascular disease. Atherosclerosis is a pathological change in the artery wall. Artery walls are considerably thicker than venous walls because they deliver blood at high pressure. See figure 1: tunica intima is present on all blood vessels, including capillaries, tunica media contains smooth muscle. This layer is thinner in veins: tunica externa contains connective tissue. This layer is also thinner in veins: adventitia present of the outside of the artery. The external walls of the thicker arteries are vascularized to ensure that they are properly supplied with nutrients and oxygen. Everyone has some cholesterol on their arterial walls, but it is insignificant. It is called a fatty streak and refers to lipid accumulation in proliferating intima sm and ecm. Fibrous tissue that accumulates in the intima is atherosclerosis.
