Signs and symptoms of Atherosclerosis

Signs and symptoms

Atherosclerosis typically begins in early adolescence, and is usually found in most major arteries, yet is asymptomatic and not detected by most diagnostic methods during life. Atheroma in arm, or more often in leg arteries, which produces decreased blood flow is called peripheral artery occlusive disease  (PAOD).
According to United States data for the year 2004, for about 65% of men and 47% of women, the first symptom of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is heart attack or sudden cardiac death (death within one hour of onset of the symptom).

Most artery flow disrupting events occur at locations with less than 50% lumen narrowing (~20% stenosis is average). The illustration above, like most illustrations of arterial disease, overemphasizes lumen narrowing, as opposed to compensatory external diameter enlargement (at least within smaller arteries, e.g., heart arteries) typical of the atherosclerosis process as it progresses (see Glagov or the ASTEROID trial). The relative
geometry error within the illustration is common to many older illustrations, an error slowly being more commonly recognized within the last decade.
Cardiac stress testing, traditionally the most commonly performed non-invasive testing method for blood flow limitations, in general, detects only lumen narrowing of ~75% or greater, although some physicians claim that nuclear stress methods can detect as little as 50%.




 References:

    Text book of Clinical pharmacy and Therapeutics by Eric T. Herfindal. 

   Text book of Pathophysiology by Dr.S.L.Bodhankar.