Interleukin-8 plays a crucial role in initiating atherosclerosis by recruiting monocytes and macrophages to the vessel wall (Ito and Ikeda, 2003) and has been shown, together with IL-6 and RANTES, to be elevated and to correlate with disease activity in patients with Takayasu's arteritis (Arnaud et al., 2006). Here, CXCL8 is linked to atherosclerosis.