Describe the Developmental Periods of coronary artery diseases?
The development of coronary artery disease like many other diseases can be divided into the following periods:
i) Incubation period: which begins in infancy and continue into adolescence. Here the genetic or hereditary factors interplay with environmental conditions to start the process and sustain it. The presence of various risk factors accentuates and accelerates the pathogenetic mechanism, but the disease does not become evident.
ii) Preclinical and latent period: when the disease is present in varying degrees of severity but the person remains asymptomatic. Presence of disease can be ascertained by various tests.
iii) Clinical period: when signs and symptoms appear. Though the typical symptoms angina of effort because of myocardial infractions, many patients do develop myocardial infarction without any preceding angina. For some the only manifestation will be sudden death coming without any waning, mostly because of malignant ventricular arrhythmias. It is to be noted that the symptomatic period is the tip of the iceberg and the vast majority of patients remain asyimptomatic until some catastrophe strikes them.