Medical Image: Coronary Atherosclerosis

Coronary artery disease develops in a body when major blood vessels that supply heart with blood, oxygen and nutrients get damaged. Plaque (cholesterol containing deposits) in arteries and inflammation are the main factors for coronary artery disease.

Plaques build up narrows your coronary arteries and decrease blood flow to the heart. Finally, the decreased blood flow causes angina that is called chest pain, short breathing and other coronary artery disease signs and symptoms. A complete blockage due to plague causes a heart attack may result into death.

Below is the photograph is of a patient suffering with mild coronary atherosclerosis (Figure 1). A few scattered yellow lipid plaques can be seen on the intimal surface of the opened coronary artery traversing the epicardial surface of a heart. The degree of atherosclerosis here is not significant enough to cause disease, but could be the harbinger of worse atherosclerosis to come [1,2].

This is the Computed tomography angiogram of the same patient suffering from coronary atherosclerosis (Figure 2). (Upper Portion: Mild proximal stenosis with expansive remodelling and predominantly nonexpansive plaque; Lowe Portion: Partially calcified advanced mid to distal stenosis).