Atherosclerosis and aortic aneurysm – is inflammation a common denominator?

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the major cause of death in developed countries. Various risk factors including host genetics and, more importantly, environmental factors such as lifestyle, diet and smoking influence CVD progression. Two common forms of CVD are atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Emerging evidence suggests that inflammation plays a pivotal role in CVD. However, it remains unclear whether the same inflammatory pathways prove essential for atherosclerosis and AAA because, in some cases, the same mechanisms uniformly promote both diseases, while in others they function in opposite ways. Cytokines, key mediators of inflammation, play an important role in the development of atherosclerosis but have only been scarcely studied in AAA. In this review, we discuss the importance of immune-mediated mechanisms and cytokines in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and AAA.