Serum apolipoprotein A-I concentration differs in coronary and peripheral artery disease

Abstract

Coronary artery and peripheral artery diseases represent different clinical outcomes of atherosclerosis and despite sharing common risk factors the ultimate reasons determining disease presentation are still unclear. The present study sought to define and compare the serum lipid and apolipoprotein profiles of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting and those treated invasively for symptomatic lower extremity peripheral artery disease. Altogether 218 coronary and 280 peripheral artery disease patients treated between 2013 and 2014 in the Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland, with available lipid measurements within two years prior to the intervention were retrospectively analysed. The Extended Friedewald formula neural network model was used to obtain apolipoprotein and lipoprotein subfraction values. Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery had a clear male predominance (82% versus 53%, p < 0.001), lower median age (69 versus 74 years, p < 0.001) and a lower prevalence of smoking (18% versus 32%, p = 0.001) and pulmonary disease (12% versus 20%, p = 0.023) compared to peripheral artery disease patients. There were some differences in the serum lipid profiles between the study groups in the univariable analyses. When controlling for the statistically significant differences in age, sex, urgency of treatment and comorbidities between the groups in a multivariable logistic regression model, higher serum concentrations of apolipoprotein A-I were significantly and independently associated with coronary artery disease (OR 1.11 for 0.01 g/L increase, p = 0.044). In conclusion, patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting appear to have higher apolipoprotein A-I levels when compared to patients treated for peripheral artery disease.

Keywords:

• Atherosclerosis
• coronary artery bypass grafting
• coronary artery disease
• lipids
• peripheral arterial disease

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Competitive Research Funding of the Tampere University Hospital [under Grant X51001 for T.L. and N.O.], the Emil Aaltonen Foundation [T.L., N.O., and J.K.], the Academy of Finland (Grant 286284), the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, European Union 7th Framework Program [grant 201668 for AtheroRemo], and the EU Horizon 2020 [grant 755320 for TAXINOMISIS].