Autopsy data reveals that while coronary atherosclerosis develops roughly 20 years earlier than cerebral atherosclerosis, the extent and severity of disease in both arterial beds are significantly correlated.
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.
Mathur et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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