Pathogenesis of acute coronary syndromes

Coronary artery diseases may categorized into asymptomatic disease, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, chronic heart failure, and sudden coronary death. Unstable angina, acute myocardial infarction, and sudden cardiac death are known as the acute coronary syndromes. Coronary atheroma is unstable in the patients with acute coronary syndromes. Stable plaques will be unstable when dynamic alterations occur. The alterations are plaque rupture, plaque hemorrhage, coronary thrombosis and vasospasm. They act each other. We analysed the histopathology of coronary arteries who died of acute myocardial infarction in 85 cases. It showed that the risk factors of plaque rupture are clusters of form cells, eccentric plaque with soft lipid rich core, and thinning of fibrous cap in atheroma. Most of these cases ruptured at edge of the atheroma.