Santamaría A, Perelló A, Berenguer A, Vera-Sempere F J, Calabuig J R
Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital La Fe, Valencia.
An Med Interna. 2001 Apr;18(4):201-4.
Cholesterol Crystals Embolization is not a very frequent entity that happens in people with atheromatous disease of spontaneous for or after the realization of vascular manipulation (angiographic, angioplasty procedures, cardiovascular surgery) or more rarely with the treatment with oral anticoagulants and after thrombolytic therapy. The clinical presentation is according to the arterial affected territory and so from diagnosed cases in autopsy reports to florid clinic forms exist. The more frequent are the cutaneous manifestations with apparition of livedo reticularis and purple toes that could go accompanied of necrosis of lower limbs, consecutive from the renal manifestations and the gastrointestinal tract one. The diagnosis is based on the biopsy of organ affected lesions to level of arterioles, that revealed characteristic cholesterol clefts, above all the cutaneous biopsy, muscular and in any case renal. As for the treatment is symptomatic with analgesics, antiplatelet agents, anti-inflammatory, etc ... but it doesn't after the presage and the evolution of the illness. A clear contraindication exists to the use of oral anticoagulants and heparin.