How much can be inferred from the left main coronary artery?

Esteban Escolar; Nell J. Weissman

摘要： Atherosclerotic diseases is a diffuse process that involves the coronaries, carotids, renals and all other peripheral arteries owing to the systemic nature of atherosclerotic pathophysiology. This systemic precipitants that promote aggressive atherogenesis have been confirmed in multiple studies showing a relationship between atherosclerotic disease in one vascular bed with disease in another. However, the strength of this relationship varies from patient to patient. Thus, the practical utility of the diffuse nature of atheresclerosis is questionable. Ge and colleagues have proposed the use of left main (LM)coronary artery disease as a potential marker for left anterior descending (lAD) atherosclerotic disease. At first thought, this seems useless since the evaluation of the LM (by angiography or IVUS) can just as easily be performed in the LAD so why bother searching for such a surrogate? However, newer (non-invasive) imaging modalifies are making great gains and will be able to reliably image the LM sooner than the LAD (especially the distal LAD) so such a surrogate could have practical applications.