Sharif Digital Repository

Coronary artery diseaseaffects millions of persons and isone of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Invasive techniques such as coronary artery bypassgrafting are used to alleviate the lesion of arterial occlusion.Unfortunately, restenosis or occlusion of the graftedconduit occurs over a time frame of months to years with a gradual reduction in patency, especially in vein grafts. Theevents leading to intimal hyperplasia (IH) formation involve numerous cellular and molecular components. Variouscellular elements of the vessel wall are involved as are leucocyte–endothelial interactions that trigger the coagulationcascade leading to localized thrombus formation. Subsequent... 

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death all over the world, even more common than cancers. The first reason of mortality in Iran according to statistics is the occlusion of coronary arteries. Unfortunately almost one third of patients doesn’t have enough blood vessels to be used in the bypass surgery and need artificial vessels. These artificial blood vessels with small diameters (less than 6 mm) will fail quickly. As a result there is an increasing demand for tissue engineered blood vessels which are capable of enduring high blood pressures. An artificial blood vessel should mimic both structure and mechanical properties of the real one. Blood vessels have layered structures,...