Mast cells in human coronary arteries; is there any correlation with luminal narrowing?

Histamine in the human coronary arteries is harboured in mast cells and possibly in a non-mast cell store. Upon histamine exposure atherosclerotic coronary arteries react differently than normal coronary arteries, and histamine has been proposed to provoke vasospasms, ischaemia and sudden cardiac death. Previous reports have indicated a correlation between the mast cell density and the histamine content on the one hand and the degree of atherosclerosis on the other hand. Since previous reports applied visual assessment of the luminal narrowing only, we reexamined these results utilising planimetric methods. The study was accomplished by examining coronary arteries from autopsy cases (50-70 years, N = 29) with a diagnosis of sudden death, myocardial infarction or a non-cardiac cause. The mast cell density was calculated as the ratio between the mast cell count and the adventitial area as seen by light microscopy, and was compared to the degree of luminal narrowing. We were not able to find any correlation between the mast cell density and the luminal narrowing. The myocardial infarction group had the most severe degree of luminal narrowing, but there was no significant difference in mast cell density between the groups. We therefore question the previous notion that there is a correlation between the adventitial mast cell density in the coronary arteries and the luminal narrowing. Earlier reports may have been biased by visual assessment and by erroneously treating several measurements from the same person as independent samples.