粥状硬化巣の脂質の形態について

Abstract

Though the biochemical study of lipid in blood or deposited in atheromatous lesions has been exhaustively studied, its morphological research was unusually insufficient.The author devided the fat deposition into four types and tried some speculation about their origin as follows:1. Extracellular fatIt can be classified into two sub-types. “fibrillar fat” and “discus type fat”. a) fibrillar fat deposition appears first at the intimal deep layer in the very early stage of disease.The fat is deposited on delicate collagenous or elastic fibrils running longitudinally to arterial axis. b) Discus type fat deposition accumulates along the borderline between the layers of organized thrombi which give lamellar structure to the atheroma.It grows in all directions until it can be seen as atheromatous fat.2. Intracellular fatIt can be sub-divided into two types; “foam cell” and “spindle-shaped fat cells”. a) foam cells might orignate from blood cells and intermingle frequently with sparse inflammatory cell infiltration in the upper intimal layers. b) spindle-shaped fat cells will be fatfilled smooth muscle cells in the intima. Some of them is surrounded by unstained narrow zone shown by Sudan staining.3. Amorphous fat in atheromaThe atheromatous fat is the terminal figure of all kinds of fat deposition.Not only the extracellular fat above mentioned, but also the intracellular fat is thrown out of cells after the cells die.4. Fat existing together with intimal hemorrhageThe fat deposition existing together with intimal hemorrhage seems to be rather the fat tissue than the fat deposition.The origin of this fat is not yet clear.