Olga Hudlická, who has died aged 87, was a leading vascular physiologist whose work on the growth of blood vessels in skeletal and cardiac muscle was pivotal to our understanding of the beneficial effects of exercise and of how blood vessels invade cancerous tumours. Her major contribution was to explain the local mechanisms regulatiing growth of such capillaries, and to show how mechanical factors (especially increased friction between blood and an artery wall), in conjunction with growth factors, play a powerful role in initiating angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels).
This process is fundamental to muscle performance following endurance training, and Olga saw with clarity how this understanding could be applied to different clinical situations. Based on testing with restricted muscle blood supply and electrical stimulation of muscles, she promoted therapeutic approaches that can ameliorate peripheral vascular disease. This has proved of great benefit to patients with impaired walking due to intermittent restriction of muscle blood flow, and also in other cases of poor muscle blood flow (for instance hypertension, stroke and heart failure).
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