Atherosclerosis: humoral and cellular factors of inflammation.

In the past decade, atherosclerosis has come to be recognized as active and inflammatory rather than simply a passive process of lipid infiltration or a reparative process after endothelial injury. In general, atherosclerosis can be considered as an intramural chronic inflammation resulting from interactions between modified lipoproteins, monocyte-derived macrophages, lymphocytes, and the normal cellular elements of the arterial wall. The process of inflammation occurs in response to functional and structural injury through a variety of known and unknown stimuli and is active over years and decades. Here, we review recent experimental and human studies of inflammatory mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.