الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Atherosclerosis is the principle cause of death in ! the Western and developed countries, it generally begins in childhood and progresses slowly until it s clinical manifestations become evident in middle, and late adulthood. Many studies were done for more detailed informat ions a bo ut its pathogenesis beginning from Framingham studyin1970 to Bogalusa H study in 1986. The aim of this work was to get more det ai led informat ions about at herogenes is and the protective role played by the schistosomal hepatic fibrosis in this atherogenesis. The study included 250 male farmers aged 40 years and above, taken from Itay EI-BaroodCentral Hospital Behera Governorate, another 250 indivisuals were taken as cant rol . Being a multifactorial process, both clinical and biochemical investigations were done to study the: prevelance of risk factors as well as at herosclerot ic manifestations in both groups. The study revealed that: The incidence of atherogenic risk factors were significantly higher in the control subjects than in the schistosomal ones: - 52 of the control were hypertensive versus 13.6 of the schistosomal group. - 28 of the control were hypercholesterolemic versus 7.6 of the schistosomal. The result s of this work cleared up that schistosomal liver fibrosis acts as a protective factor against the occurrence of at he rosclerosi s which is still a vague,~ mechanism but many possibilities have heen suggest ed: 1. Defect i ve intestinal absorption of dietary cholesterol due to congestive gastrointestinal tract. 2. Decreased liver biosynthesis ~f cholesterol. 3. The presence of various sites of portocaval shunts. 4. The lower incidence of hypertension in schistosomal group which might be due to enzymatic factors affecting the arterial reactivity. Atherosclerotic manifestations found in this study observed were less in the schistosomal group than in the cont rol . The arterial wall changes were only observed in 5.6 of the schistosomal versus 19.8 in the control. - The corneal arcus was only observed in 6 of schistosomal versus 18.8 of the control. - xanthelasma was only observed in 8 of schistosomal 14.4 of the schistosomal fundus’ versus 15.2 of the control.