Abstract
The advent of nanomedicine allowed for the development and design of tools that enhance detailed diagnosis and target treatment of atherosclerosis. Given the rapid progress in nanoagent synthesis and utility, clinical application of these technologies can be anticipated in the near future. This review article focuses on the development of these technologies in interventional cardiology, with the main goal of achieving atheroregression below a Glagov threshold of 40%. Special attention is given to plasmonic photothermal therapy. Vascular remodeling maintains the lumen dimension as long as the external elastic membrane can accommodate an increase in plaque burden that does not surpass a certain threshold. We propose that this threshold becomes the target for the development of strategies that reverse atherosclerosis, especially for the generation of devices and tools of nanomedicine.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The author would like to thank, for research support, his colleagues in Abbott Vascular (CA, USA), Envision Scientific Private Limited (Surat, India), Ural Institute of Cardiology (Yekaterinburg, Russia) and Thorax Center of Erasmus Medical Center (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), who were involved in the ABSORB trial, as well as participants of the REVOLUTION, NANOPLASTY, NANOM, and NIRVANA projects. The author also thanks FP7-IIF Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship program of the European Commission for support of the DREAM (Development of Bioresorbable Scaffolds and Nanotechnologies for Reversal of Atherosclerosis) project. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.