[Infections and coronary heart diseases].

The role of inflammatory mechanisms in the initiation, progression and clinically expression of atherosclerosis is increasingly appreciated, and a large number of review have been published on associations between of coronary heart disease and various bacterial and viral agents. This review provides a systematic overview of the available the epidemiological and clinical studies on coronary heart disease and Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus and dental disease as well as possible mechanisms. These published prospective studies provide no good evidence to support the existence of strong epidemiological associations between coronary heart disease and Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus and dental disease but because the available evidence is still sparse, further studies of these agents are needed that can reliably investigate the possibility of associations with coronary heart disease.