Inflammatory markers and restenosis in peripheral percutaneous angioplasty with intravascular stenting: current concepts.

In this article, we review the current status of inflammation linked to percutaneous transluminal angioplasty with stent implantation, especially as it relates to restenosis and its clinical implications. Common to multiple vascular diseases, including atherosclerosis, interventional restenosis is a localized inflammatory reaction. Activated smooth muscle cells respond to local inflammation and migrate from the media into the lumen of the vessel, where they proliferate and synthesize cytokines which they respond to in an autocrine manner, sustaining the progression of the lesion. The deleterious effects of proinflammatory cytokines, particularly immunomodulatory interleukins, on vascular pathophysiology and development of these maladaptive processes have been the subject of intense study. Matrix metalloproteinases and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases are important in many physiologic and pathologic processes and their expression is related with the classic cardiovascular risk factors as well as with inflammation. They seem to play a central role in atherosclerosis and restenosis. The primary use of drug-eluting stents has become routine clinical practice for coronary artery disease, but the use in peripheral arteries remains to be further studied, like that demonstrated in sirolimus-coated Cordis trials. New studies to understand this complex process in peripheral arteries are warranted.