Figure 18. Apoptosis and Factor VIII for whole vessel and near lumen.

Plaque erosion has been hypothesized to result from endothelial denudation, possibly resulting from apoptosis. When examining the whole vessel, eroded plaques are significantly less apoptotic (Figure 5) than ruptured plaques or TCFAs but no significant difference in total Factor VIII and CD31/CD34. When isolating the endothelium (by examining a region within 10 µm of the lumen) eroded plaques did not have a significantly greater number of apoptotic cells and had significantly more Factor VIII positive cells than ruptured plaques or TCFAs.