Arterial wall injury,arterial wall healing and restenosis

Substantial damage is inflicted on the arterial wall by conventional balloon angioplasty as well as by newer interventional devices. Restenosis seems to be due to an exaggerated, albeit normal healing response of the arterial wall to interventional injury. Since the relationship between arterial wall damage and restenosis is not entirely clear, experimental studies were performed in the normal rabbit to assess the effects of the nature and the extent of injury on the subsequent myointimal proliferation. The results suggest that the myointimal proliferation is an aspecific repair response to wall injury. The results further suggest an on-off character of myointimal proliferation after injury, which would imply that alternative, less damaging interventional methods may not reduce the problem of restenosis.