A Model for Therapeutic Interventions on Established Coronary Atherosclerosis in a Nonhuman Primate

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Abstract
Modern medicine is faced with the challenge of helping hundreds of millions of individuals with undetected coronary atherosclerosis, many of whom will eventually develop ischemic heart disease and probably die as a consequence. To reduce the incidence of clinically unrecognized coronary atherosclerosis, a risk-free, noninvasive, and so far nonexistent method of detecting the progress of coronary atherosclerosis in man is long overdue. Until such a method becomes available, the most feasible alternative is to substitute an animal model in which coronary atherosclerosis can be induced and to study its progression, regression, or arrest. Nonhuman primates are a natural choice since spontaneous atherosclerotic lesions have been described in all species so far studied (1). But our knowledge of the incidence and prevalence of atherosclerosis in these models is limited because most reports are based on only a few animals (1). Furthermore, such spontaneous lesions are generally minimal (2,3) and do not impair normal arterial functions as they do in man. A priori, not every species of nonhuman primate appears to meet all the requirements for determining the effect of therapeutic interventions on the course of coronary atherosclerosis. However, monkeys had to be selected on the basis of availability, and the lesions induced were more advanced than the spontaneous type (1).