Rare, but clinically significant cases of abnormalities of coronary arteries: "pathological valves".

The most commonly occurring pathology of carotid arteries (CAs) is an atherosclerotic stenosing lesion thereof (accounting for up to 80% of all cases), to be immediately followed by pathological tortuosity of carotid arteries. Of much less frequent occurrence are vasculitides, vasculopathies and thrombotic lesions [1-4]. The authors revealed rarely encountered, yet clinically significant abnormalities of the CA structure, which we called "pathological valves" (PVs).