Perinatal and infant early atherosclerotic coronary lesions

Sudden death and coronary intimal thickening

“…Although I fully agree with the authors' results and conclusions, I would like to place them into the larger context of ongoing investigation on the coronary artery plaques that have been reported to be already present in fetuses and infants [2][3][4][5].…”

“…These elements infiltrated the intima together with acid mucopolysaccharide deposits, consisting of type A and C chondroitin sulfates and hyaluronic acid, probably synthesized by the SMCs themselves. Low numbers of monocytes were present; B lymphocytes were generally absent [4,5].…”

Parental Smoking and Vascular Damage in Their 5-year-old Children

“…29,38 Atherosclerotic changes were seen in the coronaries of fetuses and newborns that died and whose mother smoked in pregnancy. 39 Recently it was shown that maternal smoking leads to different (para) sympathetic control in the offspring, resulting in differences in vascular physiology between smoke-exposed and control infants. 40 Our findings suggest that both smoking by mothers themselves in pregnancy and exposure to passive smoking could be important, and that more exposure leads to more vascular damage in the offspring.…”

Smoking and FOS expression from blood leukocyte transcripts in patients with coronary artery disease

“…Moreover, c-Fos is highly expressed and collocated with macrophage CD14+ immunoreactivity in human coronary artery plaque, suggesting its potential involvement in pathogenesis [8]. c-Fos overexpression may also promote early atherosclerotic coronary lesions by causing the proliferation of smooth muscle cells of the media [21]. Interestingly, an association between early atherosclerosis and c-Fos transcription was found in arterial biopsies of prenatal infants and infants with mothers who smoked [22].…”