Significance of immunological studies in peripheral obliterating vascular diseases.

• In angiology, many efforts have been made to find methods which might be helpful in the differential diagnosis of vascular diseases. These include clinical, biochemical, histological, innnunological, and many other methods. In searching for a method to give us at least partial confirmation of a differential diagnosis, we turned to antivascular antibodies. The purpose of our investigation was to facilitate the diagnosis of the nature of vascular lesions by means of observations of immunological processes which may reflect changes in the blood vessel wall. Two basic assumptions were made: (1) antivessel antibodies do not occur in normal human beings, and (2) protein or lipoprotein carriers of immunological material resulting from pathological processes can act as heterogeneous substances and lead to the formation of corresponding antibodies. These problems have only recently begun to attract attention. The aim of our work was to find out (1) if antibodies against pathologically changed blood vessels actually exist, (2) if they exist as a unit or are formed against individual blood vessel layers, and (3) if there are quantitative differences in the antibodies against individual layers of the blood vessel coat.