Ira Tabas
The Richard J. Stock Professor Vice-Chair of Research, Department of Medicine, and Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology
Columbia University
ABSTRACT:
The immediate cause of atherothrombotic vascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction and stroke, is acute occlusive thrombosis in medium-sized arteries feeding critical organs. Thrombosis is triggered by the rupture or erosion of a minority of atherosclerotic plaques that have advanced to a particular stage of “vulnerability. The necrotic core is a key factor in plaque vulnerability, because macrophage debris promotes inflammation, plaque instability and thrombosis. Plaque necrosis arises from a combination of lesional macrophage apoptosis and defective clearance of these dead cells, a process called efferocytosis.