THERMOANALYTICAL METHODS AS A NEW APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF ATHEROMASIC PLAQUE

The final stage of the atherosclerotic lesion of vessels is an ulcerated plaque. A very interesting site of atheromasic plaque is in the epiaortic trunks, especially in the carotid vessels where occluding plaques can also be formed. Sometimes non-occulding plaques are potentially harmful due to their possible ulceration and embolisation. Using new techniques, such as Doppler analysis, etc., it is now possible to obtain accurate images reflecting the dimension, composition and structure of the plaques. At the same time, the possibility of removing the plaque by surgery means that it must first be established which plaques are at risk. Therefore, it is desirable to establish a relationship between the instrumental signals and the real risk by techniques which can provide information on the composition, structure and stability of the plaques and to correlate this information with the data from the Doppler analysis. Instrumental techniques such as thermal analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy, ICP analysis and IR spectroscopy were used to carry out this study.