The limitations of metabolic and parietal theories of atherogenesis: causes and primary mechanisms of atherosclerosis in man.

The lacunae of metabolic and parietal theories of atherogenesis are shortly mentioned. Causes of the atherosclerosis mechanism in the first years of life are not properly explained. "Risk factors" of the adult period only accelerate the disease complications and do not cause them. Factors inducing the thickening of arterial intima in childhood considered as "primum movens" of atherogenesis are mentioned. Morphogenesis, structure, evolution and their relationships with lipoid deposition are analysed on the basis of own investigations made on human material, mainly on children, and on experimental material, and an explanation of the etiopathogenic and morphoclinical complexity of atherosclerosis is advanced.