Response by Demeure et al to Letter Regarding Article, “Head-to-Head Comparison of Inflammation and Neovascularization in Human Carotid Plaques: Implications for the Imaging of Vulnerable Plaques”

We appreciate the interest in our article from Drs Chung and Kim, who raise the important issue over the leading cause of plaque destabilization and its potential dramatic consequences. They rightly point out that plaque inflammation, major criteria of plaque vulnerability, is a systemic process while plaque neovascularization is a purely local process. They also noticed that neovascularization is a crucial source of intraplaque hemorrhage, which is associated with plaque progression and rupture. We completely agree with that. In our study, we …