Atherosclerosis Essay

Atherosclerosis is a disease where arteries thicken as cholesterol builds-up on their walls. A chronic inflammatory response in the arterial wall by the macrophage accumulation, promoted by low-density lipids.5 It is caused by the formation of multiple plaques within the arteries that can lead to stroke and myocardial infarction. Macrophages tend to rupture plaques by releasing lytic???? enzymes that break plaques in the arteries. Biomarkers such as plasma lipid estimation and myeloperoxidase, calcium, tissue plasminogen activating factor levels will not suffice as treatment for advanced stages of atherosclerosis and for their diagnosis.5 But when biomarker levels combine with enhanced imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound measurements, and electron beam tomography, they will give a clear view of the atheroma size and the level of atherosclerotic tissue damage.4 …show more content…
Silver metal has been used as an antibacterial agent, and titanium in drug delivery because of its stability, but gold metal has special optical properties, such as back scattering and the ability to bind strongly to thiol groups in human tissues. Gold metal was used because of its higher stability and can be functionalized with drugs for targeted drug therapy.1 Spherical gold nanoparticles and gold nanorods have been used in biomedicine. However, nanorods have gained importance due to its high light backscattering in the near infrared area, which give more insights in the field of optical imaging. The gold nanorods used in imaging had an advantage over enhanced imaging techniques because others convert soundwaves to image or use magnetic resonance imaging which cannot penetrate deeper into the tissues, whereas light scattering allows further penetration to even deeper tissues.