Adventitial Vasa Vasorum

To the Editor: I reviewed the article Quantification of adventitial vasa vasorum (VV) vascularization in double-injury restenotic arteries by Meng et al.[1] with great interest, which described their experiment about adventitial VV and postangioplasty restenosis. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty is now widely used for the treatment of atherosclerotic lesions in various arteries. Restenosis is a major concern following angioplasty, and yet with no good solutions. Previous experimental studies suggested that there is an association between VV and atherosclerotic plaque formation and intimal hyperplasia. As occlusion of VV correlates well with neointima formation, but inhibition of VV neovascularization correlates with reduced plaque growth,[2] VV may play several different roles in different phases of atherosclerosis or postangioplasty restenosis. The causative mechanism is still unclear.