[Inflammatory mechanisms of atherosclerosis: pathogenic and etiologic inferences]

Inflammation is the reaction of a vascularized living tissue to local injury. At its chronic stage, inflammation displays 4 characteristic features that are all to be found in atherosclerotic plaques: lympho-monocytic infiltration; sclerosis; cellular proliferation; vascular proliferation. This view sheds new light and opens new avenues for research on atherosclerosis. That is true for pathogenesis which progressively integrates the mass of information that has accumulated about the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation. That is also true fort the aetiology of atherosclerosis where the causal enigmas are approached with a more open mind, much wider than the traditional concepts of degeneration and overloading that have prevailed for so long. In the near future, some promising therapeutic clues should derive from this renewed approach of atherosclerosis.