Atherosclerosis as an inflammatory disease: Doubts? No more.

Atherosclerosis is the pathological hallmark of the majority of cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke and a multifactorial event that has being debated for decades in term of causes and triggers. First hints about an inflammatory cause of atherosclerosis came from the pioneering work of Russell Ross lab (reviewed and summarized in [1]), that highlighted its pathogenic mechanism as an initial vascular response to endothelial injury which, in turn, triggers a local chronic inflammatory self-maintaining response [[1], [2], [3]].