IL1B and atherosclerosis: In addition, atherosclerosis is considered to be a chronic inflammatory disease of the large and medium arteries (Ross, 1999; Libby, 2002; Hansson, 2005), with changes in pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α),interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-1β, and anti-inflammatory cytokines including IL-10 (Tedgui and Mallat, 2006).