Study On The Relationship Between Serum Level Of Osteoprotegerin And Coronary Heart Disease

Objective: To determine serum osteoprotegerin levels in patients with coronary heart disease(CHD) and explore the relationship of them to other cardiovascular factors such as: dyslipid, hypertension, age,diabetes ,etc.Methods: 64 CHD patients who were identified by coronary angiography constituted the case group and the control group was composed of 26 persons with normal coronary angiography result. CHD group was divided into single-,double-,triple-vessel groups according to the number of diseased vessels.The plasmatic lipid concentration and blood calcium were measured.At the time of a physical examination,body mass index(BMI),age,historys of cigarette use ,hypertension,diabetes were assessed.Enzyme-linked immunoadsordent assay for the serum level of osteoprotegerin was used in all subjects .The number of diseased vessels and the coronary artery stenosis score were used to represent the severity of coronary atherosclerosis lesions. Unpaired Student's t test,ANOVA covariate variance, partial correlation, multivariate stepwise linearregression and multivariate stepwise Logistic regression were used. Results: We found no difference in serum OPG levels when stratifying the results by other CHD risks including hypertension,diabetes,current smoking. Serum OPG levels were correlated with age (r=0.478,p<0.001) .There was no correlation between serum OPG levels and BMI,lipid.The level of serum OPG was significantly higher in patients with CHD than in the control group(P<0.05).The statistical difference of OPG was found among the patients of various stenosis score group (stenosis score was examined as a categorical variable classified by tertile values) and significantly stenosed vessels group (p<0.001), and the partial correlation coefficient between serum OPG levels and stenosis score. Multivariate linear regression analysis indicated that the level of OPG was positively correlated with the stenosis score ( P<0.01 ) . The results of multivariate stepwise Logistic indicated that the serum OPG was the independent risk factor for the coronary heart disease (odds ratio,2.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.4 to 4.2).Conclusion: serum OPG levels is elevated in CHD patients.The higher level of serum osteoprotegerin, the greater the degress of coronary arteries lesions will be. Serum levels are positively correlated with age, suggesting that the factors associated with aging may regulateserum OPG levels.Though there is no information about the main sources and the regulatory mechanism of circulating OPG,OPG may be involved in the progression of CHD. The elevated concentration of serum OPG was the independent risk factor for coronary heart disease.