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The function of the vascular system is to transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells and to remove carbon dioxide and metabolites. It also transports hormones and locally produced neurohumoral substances which, in part, regulate its own function. These interrelationships are essential to homeostasis. The vascular system is not an assembly of simple (elastic) tubes but a dynamic system with many external and intrinsic regulatory mechanisms. The endothelium plays a major role in the intrinsic regulation of the system. The system is also often subject to disease processes of which atherosclerosis is the most important. As a result of atherosclerosis, and other disease processes, replacement of vessels with prosthetic devices may be required to reestablish adequate tissue blood flow. It is therefore imperative to gain insight into the details of vascular function, especially the dynamics, and the endothelium, the processes of atherosclerosis development, the vascular prosthetic possibilities and, last but not least, the interrelationships between these sub-specialties.
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First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.
Seymour Glagov The last meeting, devoted exclusively to an examination of the atherosclerotic plaque, took place in Chicago 25 years ago under the joint auspices of the Council on Arteriosclerosis of the American Heart Association and the Chicago Heart Association. The proceedings were published subsequently in a volume entitled "Evolution of the Atherosclerotic Plaque", edited by Richard J. Jones (1). Both experimental and human lesions were considered and several provocative new approaches to the disorder were discussed. The electron microscope was being applied systematically to the study of blood vessels at that time, so that details of the infrastructure and cellular composition of the artery wall and of atherosclerotic lesions were presented in some detail. There was, as one result of these explorations, considerable discussion of morphologic evidence suggesting that the principal cell involved in the atherogenic process was neither the fibroblast nor the macrophage, as had been supposed, but the smooth muscle cell. In particular, the findings indicated that this cell could incorporate lipid and become a foam cell.
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