Nomenclatural difficulties

The literature is unfortunately not uniform in point of nomenclature of the concepts above. The conceptual borders between arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis are especially blurred, and the two words are frequently used by the sources as each others synonyms which can be interchanged freely. But when it comes to Hungarian equivalents, it is still not conforting; the expression ’arterial calcification’ is inexact in a thorough professional aspect, since calcium salts don’t deposit in a significant proportion of sclerotic vessel disorders. Maybe the expression ’hardening of the arteries’ is more proper because it describes both the vascular wall stiffening effect of fibrous plaques that don’t contain calcium and wall rigidity in small vessel diseases. Although it doesn’t perfectly cover the vessel wall weakening effect of soft atheromatous plaques with large fat-core, for want of better, it is still recommended.

In this paper – since nomenclature is not uniform – we use the words ’arteriosclerosis’ and ’hardening of arteries’ alternately, and because of its everyday popularity, sometimes even the imperfect ’arterial calcification’.