Quantitative Analysis of Rabbit Coronary Atherosclerosis Practical Techniques Utilizing Open-Source Software

OBJECTIVE: Coronary atherosclerosis is widely recognized as a major cause of sudden cardiac death, acute myocardial infarction, and unstable angina pectoris. However, the techniques for quantitative analysis of coronary atherosclerosis have not been standardized and there is still a need for reduction in inaccuracies. STUDY DESIGN: This study reports a series of practical techniques to quantitatively analyze microscopic lesions of coronary atherosclerosis in myocardial infarction prone Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic rabbits. First, we applied the stenosis to evaluate the severity of coronary atherosclerosis, which was based on a comprehensive analysis of 7 blocks in each rabbit heart. Then, by splitting the RGB image to monochrome image and the setting Gray Threshold, cellular components were quantified by maximal separation from background tissue; all of these works were based on ImageJ software. RESULTS: Blocks I, II, and V had the most severe coronary atherosclerosis, and the numbers of macrophages and smooth muscle cells in atherosclerotic lesions were accurately calculated as well. CONCLUSION: We introduced a quantitative analysis to study microscopic lesions of the coronary atherosclerosis, which may be widely applied in various animal models.