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Differential associations between blood biomarkers of inflammation, oxidation, and lipid metabolism with varying forms of coronary atherosclerotic plaque as quantified by coronary CT angiography

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Abstract

Although epidemiologic data link biomarkers of cardiovascular risk with incident and prevalent coronary artery disease, exact anatomic relationships between biomarkers and coronary atherosclerosis as measured by coronary CT angiography remain unclear. Patients with acute chest pain who ultimately had no evidence of acute coronary syndrome underwent contrast-enhanced 64-slice coronary CT angiography to determine presence, extent and composition of coronary atherosclerotic plaque. We determined the differences in levels of blood biomarkers measured at the time of the CT scan between different CT-based atherosclerotic plaque groups. Among 313 patients (mean age: 51.6 ± 11 years, 62% male) high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and matrix metalloproteinase-2 were associated with the extent of calcified plaque (P = 0.03 and P < 0.001), while hs-CRP and apolipoprotein A1 were associated with the extent of non-calcified plaque (P = 0.03 and P = 0.004; respectively). Despite a generally lower risk profile, subjects with exclusively non-calcified plaque had significantly higher levels of hs-CRP and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (P = 0.01 and P = 0.03; respectively) and lower levels of adiponectin (P = 0.03) when compared to subjects with calcified plaque (n = 130, 42%). Biomarkers reflecting inflammation, vascular remodeling, oxidation, and lipoprotein metabolism maybe associated with different patterns of coronary atherosclerosis as quantified by coronary CT angiography.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Gerlinde Trischler for excellent technical assistance of the blood biomarker measurements. This work was supported by the NIH (R01 HL080053), and in part supported by Siemens Medical Solutions and General Electrics Healthcare. Dr. Januzzi is supported in part by the Balson Scholar Fund. Dr. Schlett is supported in part by the German National Merit Foundation and the ERP Scholarship.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Januzzi has received grant support from Roche Diagnostics, Siemens Diagnostics, and Critical Diagnostics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts General Hospital, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Fabian Bamberg, Quynh A. Truong, Christopher L. Schlett, Khurram Nasir, Javed Butler, Emily Kurtz & Udo Hoffmann

  2. Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    James L. Januzzi Jr

  3. Department of Clinical Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Klinikum Grosshadern, Marchioninistrasse 15, 81377, Munich, Germany

    Fabian Bamberg & Konstantin Nikolaou

  4. Department of Internal Medicine Cardiology, University of Ulm Medical Center, Ulm, Germany

    Wolfgang Koenig

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  1. Fabian Bamberg
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Correspondence to Fabian Bamberg.

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Bamberg, F., Truong, Q.A., Koenig, W. et al. Differential associations between blood biomarkers of inflammation, oxidation, and lipid metabolism with varying forms of coronary atherosclerotic plaque as quantified by coronary CT angiography. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 28, 183–192 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10554-010-9773-2

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