Abstract
Post-mortem studies on the relationship between coronary artery lesions and cigarette smoking in smoker subjects who died from AMI are numerically of scarce consistency if compared to the epidemiological and clinical findings. However, autopsy examination provides certain results on the definition of the existing link. This study, which analyzed 80 autopsy cases of smokers (n° 68) and non-smokers (n° 12) as a control group who died from AMI, showed that coronary arteries of smokers displayed more severe narrowing partially or totally occluding vessel lumen because of a superimposed thrombus and a higher incidence of three vessel coronary disease with a statistically significant difference. Calcium deposits in the coronary wall were also seen. However, the type and morphology of the alterations in both groups were similar to that observed in the lesions that usually can be documented in the histologic specimens of patients who died from AMI, any cause determined. Materials and Methods
Highlights
Cigarette smoking has been stably recognized as a major cardiovascular risk factor by the American Heart Association since evidence indicates that both types, active and passive smoking, highly increase the rate of coronary artery disease [1,2,3,4,5]
It is worth noting that the pathology of the coronary arteries observed at the autopsy in individuals who died from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is characterized by multiple aspects going from no or minimal coronary alterations [43,44,45] up to the occurrence of severe involvement [46] mainly related to the features of the atherosclerotic plaque [47,48]
The results of this study, which has been conducted in patients who died from AMI, clearly show that a strong relationship between cigarette smoking and coronary artery lesions exists as the parameters analyzed at the autopsy undoubtedly have documented
Summary
Cigarette smoking has been stably recognized as a major cardiovascular risk factor by the American Heart Association since evidence indicates that both types, active and passive smoking, highly increase the rate of coronary artery disease [1,2,3,4,5].A growing evidence, of some reports [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15], contribute to identify mainly the clinical, epidemiologic and functional characteristics of the cardiovascular effects related to smoking, while less attention has been given to the morphology of pathological lesions, which occur as a consequence of smoking compound activity.Reviewed & Approved by: Dr Luanda Grazette, Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathy, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, USA. Cigarette smoking has been stably recognized as a major cardiovascular risk factor by the American Heart Association since evidence indicates that both types, active and passive smoking, highly increase the rate of coronary artery disease [1,2,3,4,5]. A growing evidence, of some reports [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15], contribute to identify mainly the clinical, epidemiologic and functional characteristics of the cardiovascular effects related to smoking, while less attention has been given to the morphology of pathological lesions, which occur as a consequence of smoking compound activity.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
