Remodelling and restenosis: insights from animal studies

Animal studies have been instrumental in elucidating the process of remodelling and its contribution to restenosis relative to neointimal formation following angioplasty. The majority of studies have utilized rabbit, porcine and nonhuman primate models of vascular injury. Despite the use of different experimental models, different forms of vascular injury, different methods of analysis and different definitions of arterial remodelling, all animal studies, with rare exceptions, have demonstrated the importance of remodelling in the maintenance of vascular patency in both atherogenesis and in restenosis following angioplasty. The finding that remodelling in the non-human primate is most comparable to that that occurs in man suggests that there may be a genetic predisposition to the balance of neointimal formation and arterial remodelling following vascular injury.