A study of correlation of the extent and severity of atherosclerosis in the coronary and cerebral arteries and between their individual branches has been undertaken in 200 consecutive medicolegal autopsies. The coronary atherosclerosis developing first in the second decade appears about 20 years earlier than the cerebral atherosclerosis. There is, however, a significant correlation between the coronary and cerebral arterial beds. There is a significant interbranch relationship within the coronary system. The atherosclerotic process starts earliest in the left anterior descending branch of the coronary arteries. The extent of correlation is more marked between the two branches of the left coronary artery than that of either of them with the right coronary artery. The interbranch relationship in the cerebral arterial bed also shows a significant correlation. Basilar artery shows the maximum atherosclerosis, next in order being middle cerebral artery; the postcerebral artery shows much less affliction to the atheroma and the anterior cerebral artery exhibits a high degree of freedom.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Two hundred cases were selected from medicolegal autopsies for a study of the relationship of serum cholesterol to the amount and severity of atherosclerosis in the aorta and the coronary and cerebral arteries. A preliminary study of cholesterol before and after death in 20 cases showed a close parallel between the two when the sample of blood was taken within 16 hours of death. The mean serum total cholesterol showed a tendency to rise from 122 mg. per cent ±16 in the first decade to 176 mg. per cent ±28 in the fifth decade. A statistically significant correlation was found between serum total cholesterol levels and age up to the fifth decade. No correlation could be observed between the serum cholesterol level and the amount and severity of atherosclerosis in the arteries. When all the cases were divided into arbitrary groups according to the amount of atherosclerosis, a rise in the levels of mean serum total cholesterol was seen in the first six successive groups of aortic atherosclerosis. But when age was excluded from the correlation between atherosclerosis and serum cholesterol, the interrelationship between the two was found to be statistically insignificant.

Three patients, one female and two males, aged 18, 45, and 25 years, respectively, presented with the complaint of skin-colored papules interspersed with pustular lesions over the anterior and lateral aspect of the neck and upper chest for 2, 8, and 6 months, respectively. Histopathologically, mononuclear cell infiltrate centered over the infundibulum of the hair follicle was seen which confirmed the diagnosis of disseminate and recurrent infundibulofolliculitis. We report this case due to its rarity, especially in the Indian population in which less than five case reports have been published. We also report a specific pattern of lesions along the neck skin creases which can serve as an aid to increase the index of suspicion for diagnosing this entity.

Striking differences in the extent and severity of atherosclerosis were observed when our results were compared with those reported from the United States, Japan, and Jamaica, and South India by Gore et al. 4 Up to the age of 30 years the mean atherosclerotic indices of aorta from these sources were not significantly different. Subsequently, however, the mean atherosclerotic index in our cases was almost equal to that reported from South India but it was much less than that recorded in the U.S.A. and significantly less than that reported from Japan and Jamaica. It is thus seen that the factors that initiate atherogenesis are different from those that are effective in the formation of the later grades of lesions, since the same amount of streaking does not lead to an equal amount of fibrous plaque formation. It also shows that there are important geographic differences in the prevalence of these latter factors. Similarly, the coronary atherosclerosis was almost equal in our and the South Indian series but in both these places it was less advanced than that obtained in the U.S.A., Japan, and Jamaica.