Atherosclerosis remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in many countries. Recent studies have demonstrated that the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis involves not only lipid deposition, but also the inflammatory process. The heat shock proteins (HSPS) are expressed in normal cells but their expression is enhanced by a number of different stress factors including heat and ischaemia. They play important roles in chaperoning the "folding" of other proteins and in protein degradation.