Percutaneous intervention for infrainguinal occlusive disease in women: equivalent outcomes despite increased severity of disease compared with men.

Objectives: Experience with open surgical bypass suggests similar overall outcomes in women compared with men, but significantly increased risk of wound complications. Percutaneous treatment of lower extremity occlusive disease is therefore an attractive alternative in women, although it is not clear whether there is a difference in outcomes between women and men treated with this technique. We sought to determine the results and predictors of failure in women treated by percutaneous intervention.

Ambient pressure upregulates nitric oxide synthase in a phosphorylated-extracellular regulated kinase- and protein kinase C-dependent manner.

Purpose: Using endothelial cell/smooth muscle cell (SMC) cocultures, we have demonstrated that pressurized endothelial cell coculture inhibits SMC proliferation and promotes apoptosis, and that this effect is transferable through pressurized endothelial medium. We now hypothesized that endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) plays a significant role in mediating these pressure-induced effects.

Methods: Conditioned media from endothelial cells and SMCs exposed to ambient and increased pressure were transferred to recipient SMCs.

Detection of carotid stenosis in African Americans with ischemic heart disease.

Objectives: This study was conducted to define the frequency of internal carotid stenosis in African American patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD).

Methods: We recruited 101 African American patients with IHD from a university medical center for carotid duplex examination.

Results: The frequency of >30%, >50%, and >70% stenosis was 21%, 11%, and 5%, respectively.

Pressure alters endothelial effects upon vascular smooth muscle cells by decreasing smooth muscle cell proliferation and increasing smooth muscle cell apoptosis.

Background: Although de-endothelialization after vascular intervention is associated with intimal hyperplasia, endothelial cells (ECs) increase smooth muscle cell (SMC) numbers in conventional cocultures. In previously published work, SMCs cocultured with ECs in a chronic high-pressure environment exhibited significantly decreased cell counts compared to monocultured SMCs in the same high pressure. This finding contrasted with SMCs cocultured with ECs in ambient pressure, which exhibited significantly higher cell counts than the monocultured SMCs in ambient pressure.

Chronic high pressure potentiates the antiproliferative effect and abolishes contractile phenotypic changes caused by endothelial cells in cocultured smooth muscle cells.

Unlabelled: High in vitro pressures have been reported to alter smooth muscle cell (SMC) and endothelial cell (EC) phenotype, while endothelial cells (ECs) can influence the proliferation, phenotype, and contractile features of smooth muscle cells (SMC) in coculture systems. However, little is known about the in vitro effects of pressure on EC/SMC cocultures. We therefore sought to compare SMC proliferation in independent and EC coculture under ambient and high pressure, and identify changes in the contractile phenotype of SMCs by measuring levels of the L-type Ca(2+) channel a(1) subunit (dihydropyridine-DHP receptor) which is critical for Ca(2+) transients, differentiation and contractility in SMC.