[Characteristics of changes in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, autoimmune reactions and hemocoagulation in elderly patients with atherosclerosis at various sites].

Senile changes in the lipid and carbohydrate metabolisms as well as in the system of haemocoagulation are risk factors of the atherosclerotic process. Atherosclerosis in patients of advanced or old age assumes a general character and the incidence of the combined involvement of different vascular regions increases. The identification of the atherosclerotic process in patients of advances age is accompanied by an increase in the disturbances of the lipid and carbohydrate metabolisms in the immunological system and the system of haemocoagulation. There are differences in the degree of such metabolic disturbances in older patients which depend on the localization of the atherosclerotic process. The strongest disturbances of the lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and in the immune reactivity occur in connection with coronary and cerebral atherosclerosis. Less frequent are metabolic disturbances and impairments of the immune reactivity in the case of peripheral atherosclerosis obliterans. Obviously, it is not only general changes in the organism but also local factors that play an important part with regard to this type of localization of the process such as deteriorated trophism of the tissue, changes in the vascular wall. Although atherosclerosis is in general characterized by an increased haemocoagulation there exist differences depending on the various localizations of the vascular process.