Pathobiological Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth
3201 Autopsy cases: 15-34 years in age, ~50% White, ~50% Black
~75% Males, ~25% Females
2876 Included cases: 325 cases were excluded because they did not meet the study criteria: age, race, external cause of death, duration of survival after injury < 72 hours, time between death and autopsy < 48 hours
Artery Specimens: Thoracic Aorta (TA), Abdominal Aorta (AA) – Left ½ formalin fixed, Right ½ cut into sections for histological and chemical analysis
Right Coronary (RC) cut longitudinally and fixed in formalin
Left Anterior Descending Coronary (LAD) was perfusion fixed and cut into sections
Left Circumflex Coronary was sectioned for chemical and microscopic study
Gross evaluation of all 2876 TA, AA and 2863 RC specimens was performed by three pathologists. They visually estimated the extent of intimal surface involved with fatty streaks (FS), fibrous plaques (FP), complicated lesions (CO) and calcified lesions (CA). Raised Lesions (RL) = FP + CO + CA.
Microscopic American Heart Association lesion grades determined on 1142 perfusion fixed LAD sections.
Risk Factor data:
Total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, thiocyanate (marker for smoking) (1506), and C reactive protein (1264) are available.
Glycohemoglobin (2544), BMI (2863) and hypertension (2833) (determined by measurements of intimal thickness in small renal arteries) results are available.
Tissue Specimens: Frozen liver and serum (small amount) are available for some cases. Also available for most cases are fixed kidney, artery and heart (LV & RV) sections.
Slides: Most cases have a variety of slides (ORO, GTAF and Verhoeff stains) made from sections of the TA, AA and LAD.
DNA is available for most cases, but it is not at LSU. There is PDAY DNA with Dr. Hixson in Houston, Dr. Herrington at Wake Forest and Perlegen in California.