Arteriolosclerosis is a form of cardiovascular disease involving hardening and loss of elasticity of arterioles or smallarteries and is most often associated with hypertension and diabetes mellitus.[1]
Types include hyaline arteriolosclerosis and hyperplastic arteriolosclerosis,[2] both involved with vessel wall thickening and luminal narrowing that may cause downstream ischemic injury.
The following two terms whilst similar, are distinct in both spelling and meaning and may easily be confused with arteriolosclerosis.
Arteriosclerosis is any hardening (and loss of elasticity) of medium or large arteries (from the Greek arteria, meaning artery, and sclerosis, meaning hardening)
Atherosclerosis is a hardening of an artery specifically due to an atheromatous plaque. The term atherogenic is used for substances or processes that cause atherosclerosis.
Also arterial hyalinosis and arteriolar hyalinosis refers to thickening of the walls of arterioles by the deposits that appear as homogeneous pink hyaline material in routine staining.[3] It is a type of arteriolosclerosis, which refers to thickening of the arteriolar wall and is part of the aging process.[4]
Hyaline arteriolosclerosis is a major morphologic characteristic of benign nephrosclerosis, in which the arteriolar narrowing causes diffuse impairment of renalblood supply, with loss of nephrons.[5] The narrowing of the lumen can decrease renal blood flow and hence glomerular filtration rate leading to increased renin secretion and a perpetuating cycle with increasing blood pressure and decreasing kidney function.[12]
The brain is another organ where hyaline arteriolosclerosis occurs prematurely in patients with high blood pressure. This can cause either kind of stroke: an ischemic infarct or a brain hemorrhage, as the vessels can be blocked or broken.[13]
This is a type of arteriolosclerosis involving a narrowed lumen.[4]
The term "onion-skin" is sometimes used to describe this form of blood vessel[14] with thickened concentric smooth muscle cell layer and thickened, duplicated basement membrane. In malignant hypertension these hyperplastic changes are often accompanied by fibrinoid necrosis of the arterial intima and media. These changes are most prominent in the kidney and can lead to ischemia and acute kidney failure. In the brain, a small cavity called a lacune is an ischemic cavity that can arise due to brain necrosis, due to arteriolosclerosis.[15][16]
Cause
It can be caused by chronic benign (essential) hypertension[17] malignant hypertension.[4][18]
^ abStout LC, Kumar S, Whorton EB (1994). "Insudative lesions--their pathogenesis and association with glomerular obsolescence in diabetes: a dynamic hypothesis based on single views of advancing human diabetic nephropathy". Human Pathology. 25 (11): 1213–1227. doi:10.1016/0046-8177(94)90039-6. PMID7959667.
^ abNajafian B, Alpers CE, Fogo AB (2011). "Pathology of human diabetic nephropathy". Contributions to Nephrology. 170: 36–47. doi:10.1159/000324942. PMID21659756.
^Lindley RI, Wang JJ, Wong MC, Mitchell P, Liew G, Hand P, Wardlaw J, De Silva DA, Baker M, Rochtchina E, Chen C, Hankey GJ, Chang HM, Fung VS, Gomes L, Wong TY (2009). "Retinal microvasculature in acute lacunar stroke: a cross-sectional study". Lancet Neurology. 8 (7): 628–634. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(09)70131-0. PMID19481977.
^Sealey JE, von Lutterotti N, Rubattu S, Campbell WG Jr, Gahnem F, Halimi JM, Laragh JH (1991). "The greater renin system. Its prorenin-directed vasodilator limb. Relevance to diabetes mellitus, pregnancy, and hypertension". American Journal of Hypertension. 4 (12 Part 1): 972–977. doi:10.1093/ajh/4.12.972. PMID1815656.
^Fisher CM (December 1968). "The arterial lesions underlying lacunes". Acta Neuropathologica. 12 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1007/BF00685305. PMID5708546.
^Fisher CM (1971). "Pathological observations in hypertensive cerebral hemorrhage". Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. 30 (3): 536–550. doi:10.1097/00005072-197107000-00015. PMID4105427.
^Laurent, Stéphane; Boutouyrie, Pierre (2015). "The structural factor of hypertension: large and small artery alterations". Circulation Research. 116 (6): 1007-0021. doi:10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.116.303596. PMID25767286.