Abstract Circulating amyloid-beta 1–40 (Αb40) has pro-atherogenic properties and could serve as a biomarker in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). However, the association of Ab40 levels ...with morphological characteristics reflecting atherosclerotic plaque echolucency and composition is not available. Carotid atherosclerosis was assessed in consecutively recruited individuals without ASCVD ( n = 342) by ultrasonography. The primary endpoint was grey scale median (GSM) of intima-media complex (IMC) and plaques, analysed using dedicated software. Vascular markers were assessed at two time-points (median follow-up 35.5 months). In n = 56 patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy, histological plaque features were analysed. Plasma Αb40 levels were measured at baseline. Ab40 was associated with lower IMC GSM and plaque GSM and higher plaque area at baseline after multivariable adjustment. Increased Ab40 levels were also longitudinally associated with decreasing or persistently low IMC and plaque GSM after multivariable adjustment ( p < 0.05). In the histological analysis, Ab40 levels were associated with lower incidence of calcified plaques and plaques without high-risk features. Ab40 levels are associated with ultrasonographic and histological markers of carotid wall composition both in the non-stenotic arterial wall and in severely stenotic plaques. These findings support experimental evidence linking Ab40 with plaque vulnerability, possibly mediating its established association with major adverse cardiovascular events.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has been associated with a high incidence of arterial and venous thrombotic complications. However, thromboembolic events in ...unusual sites such as limb and visceral arterial ischemia are reported rarely in the literature. Herein, we describe a rare case of a patient with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection who experienced severe abdominal pain during the hospitalization and presented simultaneously renal artery, splenic artery and vein as well as aortic thrombi despite prophylactic antithrombotic treatment. Information about his follow-up post discharge is also provided. This case report raises significant clinical implications regarding the correct dose of antithrombotic treatment during the acute phase of the severe COVID-19 infection and highlights the need for incessant vigilance in order to detect thrombosis at unusual sites as a possible diagnosis when severe abdominal pain is present in severe COVID-19 patients.
Purpose
The increase in cardiovascular risk after the menopausal transition remains partly explained until today. Further research is needed to identify risk factors potentially modifiable by primary ...prevention practices. This cross-sectional study, part of a larger prospective project, aims to investigate possible associations between dietary patterns and indices of vascular structure and function among healthy postmenopausal women.
Methods
Postmenopausal women (
n
= 310) without clinically overt cardiovascular disease were recruited consecutively from a University Menopause Clinic over three years. Dietary intake was assessed by a validated food frequency questionnaire and the MedDietScore. In addition, we assessed anthropometric/biochemical parameters, including the Triglyceride-glucose index (TyG-Index), body fat distribution triceps skinfold (TSF), mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and physical activity. The vascular assessment included carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), carotid and femoral-artery intima-media thickness (IMT) and atheromatous plaques presence.
Results
Consumption of non-refined cereals was associated with carotid-bulb IMT (R
2
= 5.5% b-coefficient = −0.142;
p
= 0.011), adjusting for age, physical activity, lipids, systolic blood pressure, smoking, body mass index, insulin resistance, and daily energy intake. PWV was associated with the intake of total dairy products (R
2
= 27.3%, b-coefficient = −0.117;
p
= 0.017). Higher red meat consumption was related to a greater TyG-index (Model 1, R
2
= 14.3%, b-coefficient=0.121;
p
= 0.048), an association mediated by total daily energy intake. Higher consumption of alcohol, as well as the MedDietScore, were inversely associated with TSF measurements, significant after Bonferroni correction.
Conclusion
Dietary patterns are associated with metabolic indices and subclinical atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women independently of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, total energy intake or physical activity.
Myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) is an established diagnostic technique for inducible ischemia in patients with suspected chronic coronary syndrome (CCS). Some MPS findings, most notably an ...ischemia extent>10% of the left ventricle (LV), hold prognostic significance and support maximization of anti-ischemic treatment. We aimed to assess sex-specific associations of MPS findings with cardiovascular (CV) events in a population at high risk of CCS.
In a prospective cohort study, 1,229 consecutive patients (age 70 ± 9.5 years, 73.5% males) without known CCS were referred to stress-rest MPS. All patients were followed for a median of 4.6 years for CV events.
Men and women had comparable risk profiles and incidence rates of CV events (6.6% vs. 4.6% respectively, P = 0.186). A summed stress score (SSS) > 7 was associated with the primary endpoint, including CV death and/or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) (adjusted hazard ratio HR, 3.13; 95% confidence interval CI, 1.79-5.46; P = 0.001), all-cause mortality (HR, 3.01; 95% CI, 1.31-6.93; P = 0.01), and incidence of late revascularization (HR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.22-2.78; P = 0.004) in men but not women. A summed difference score (SDS) > 6 was related to a higher rate of the primary endpoint only in men (adjusted HR, 1.97; 95% CI, 1.18-3.30; P = 0.009).
Among patients undergoing a diagnostic workup for suspected CCS, stress perfusion and reversible ischemia abnormalities may independently predict worse survival and more CV events in men. However, the obtained results indicated the need for sex-specific cutoffs to refine risk stratification and assist in clinical decisions on anti-ischemic therapy beyond coronary artery anatomy.
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Remnant cholesterol (RC) is an emerging factor contributing to residual risk for the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). We aimed to investigate the association of RC with ...ASCVD in high ASCVD risk patients.
RC was calculated in 906 participants (178 low/moderate-risk and 728 high-risk) consecutively recruited from a vascular registry. Subclinical carotid atherosclerosis was assessed by B-mode carotid ultrasonography. Maximal carotid wall thickness (maxWT) and carotid atherosclerotic burden (n ≥ 2 atherosclerotic plaques) were set as the vascular outcomes. An independent cohort of 87 consecutively recruited high-risk patients who were followed for their lipid profile for 3 months was also analyzed.
RC was increased in the high-risk group as compared to controls (26 ± 17 vs. 21 ± 11 mg/dl, respectively, p < 0.001). Increased RC levels were independently associated with increased maxWT and carotid atherosclerotic burden (p < 0.05), after adjustment for traditional cardiovascular risk factors (TRF) and ASCVD. RC levels were associated with the presence of flow-limiting ASCVD and coronary artery disease (CAD) (p < 0.05), after adjustment for TRFs. These associations remained significant in those not receiving hypolipidemic treatment and in treated individuals achieving LDL-C<100 mg/dl. In the prospective cohort, there was no significant interaction between change in RC levels and hypolipidemic status, as contrasted to LDL-C levels (p < 0.001).
In a high-risk population, RC was associated with subclinical and clinically overt ASCVD, particularly in patients with the most adverse lipid phenotype (untreated) or in treated patients with a low LDL-related risk profile. These findings support a residual pro-atherosclerotic role of RC in high-risk patients.
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Sex-specific data are limited regarding eligibility for hypolipidemic treatment. We aim to explore the sex-specific clinical utility of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and carotid ...ultrasound as risk modifiers for hypolipidemic treatment in primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).
We aimed to explore these sex-specific trends in two pooled contemporary independent Greek cohorts (Athens Vascular Registry n = 698, 50.9% women and Menopause Clinic n = 373, 100% women) of individuals without overt ASCVD. Baseline ASCVD risk was estimated using the Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation-2 (SCORE2) tools. The presence of carotid plaque and hsCRP ≥2 mg/L were integrated as risk modifiers.
Men had increased odds to achieve target LDL-C levels based on ASCVD risk (23.8% vs. 17.7%, OR: 1.45 95% CI: 1.05–2.00, p = 0.023, for men vs. women). Additionally, considering carotid plaque or high hsCRP levels did not change this association but reduced on-target LDL-C rate in both sexes. Women had decreased odds of being eligible for hypolipidemic treatment by ASCVD risk estimation (11.5% vs. 26.4%, p < 0.001) compared with men. The addition of carotid plaque presence or high hsCRP levels and their combination resulted in a higher relative increase in hypolipidemic treatment eligibility in women (from 11.5% to 70.9% vs. 26.4% to 61.4% for carotid plaque, from 11.5% to 38.5% vs. 26.4% to 50.8% for hsCRP and from 11.5% to 79.1% vs. 26.4% to 75% for their combination, all for women vs. men, pforinteraction < 0.001 for all) than men.
Implementation of carotid plaque and hsCRP levels increases hypolipidemic treatment eligibility more prominently in women than in men. The impact on clinical outcomes in these untreated patients merits further investigation.
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The Stroke Units Necessity for Patients (SUN4P) project aims to provide essential data on stroke healthcare in Greece. Herein, we present results on established quality indicators and outcomes after ...first-ever stroke occurrences.
This prospective multicenter study included consecutive patients admitted to nine hospitals across Greece in 2019-2021. Descriptive statistics were used to present patients' characteristics, key performance measures and stroke outcomes.
Among 892 patients, 755 had ischemic stroke (IS) (mean age 75.6 ± 13.6, 48.7% males) and 137 had hemorrhagic stroke (HS) (mean age 75.8 ± 13.2, 57.7% males). Of those, 15.4% of IS and 8% of HS patients were treated in the acute stroke unit (ASU) and 20.7% and 33.8% were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) or high-dependency unit (HDU), respectively. A total of 35 (4.6%) out of 125 eligible patients received intravenous alteplase with a door-to needle time of 60 min (21-90). The time to first scan for IS patients was 60 min (31-105) with 53.2% undergoing a CT scan within 60 min post presentation. Furthermore, 94.4% were discharged on antiplatelets, 69.8% on lipid-lowering therapy and 61.6% on antihypertensives. Oral anticoagulants (OAC) were initiated in 73.2% of the 153 IS patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Among the 687 IS patients who survived, 85.4% were discharged home, 12% were transferred to rehabilitation centers, 1.2% to nursing homes and 1.3% to another hospital.
The SUN4P Registry is the first study to provide data from a prospectively collected cohort of consecutive patients from nine representative national hospitals. It represents an important step in the evaluation and improvement of the quality of acute stroke care in Greece.
In this study we used Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate the potential causal association of lipoprotein (a) Lp(a) levels with pulse wave velocity (PWV).
Genetic variants associated with ...Lp(a) were retrieved from the UK Biobank GWAS (N = 290,497). A non- overlapping GWAS based on a European cohort (N = 7,000) was used to obtain genetic associations with PWV (outcome) and utilized two different measures for the same trait, brachial-ankle (baPWV) and carotid-femoral (cfPWV) PWV. We applied a two-sample MR using the inverse variance weighting method (IVW) and a series of sensitivity analyses for 170 SNPs that were selected as instrumental variables (IVs).
Our analyses do not support a causal association between Lp(a) and PWV for neither measurement β
(baPWV) = -.0005, p = .8 and β
(cfPWV) = -.006, p = .16. The above findings were consistent across sensitivity analyses including weighted median, mode-based estimation, MR-Egger regression and MR-PRESSO.
We did not find evidence indicating that Lp(a) is causally associated with PWV, the gold standard marker of arterial stiffness.
Right ventricular (RV) involvement has been reported in one out of three patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), however its prognostic significance remains unknown. We aimed to assess the ...prognostic value of RV involvement in patients with HCM through a systematic review and meta-analysis.
A literature search was performed on PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov and Cochrane Library databases from inception through November 15, 2023. Original articles enrolling HCM patients >18 years old and evaluating the association of RV parameters routinely assessed in clinical practice through trans-thoracic echocardiography or cardiac magnetic resonance (i.e., RV hypertrophy, volumes, systolic function, and late gadolinium enhancement) and the risk of a pre-defined composite endpoint including i) all cause death; ii) cardiac death; iii) heart transplantation; iv) heart failure-related hospitalization; v) atrial fibrillation; vi) ventricular tachycardia; and vii) stroke were retrieved. We pooled the effect of RV imaging variables on the combined clinical endpoint in terms of hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).
The meta-analysis included 12 articles and 4634 patients. The pooled analysis demonstrated that the presence of RV systolic dysfunction conveyed an increased risk of adverse outcomes (HR 2.46; 95% CI 1.80–3.35; P < 0.001), whereas other RV imaging parameters were not significantly associated with patients' prognosis, except for RV-fractional area change analyzed as a continuous variable (HR 0.96 per % increase; 95% CI 0.93–0.995; P = 0.025).
Our results pinpoint a prognostic role of RV dysfunction, independent of left ventricular involvement, in patients with HCM, and future longitudinal studies, including multi-parametric RV assessment, are encouraged to provide clinically-relevant data to refine risk stratification in patients with HCM.
•Right ventricular dysfunction conveys an increased risk of adverse outcomes in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.•Among several imaging parameters, fractional area change resulted associated with the composite endpoint.•Longitudinal studies, including multi-parametric right ventricular assessment, are encouraged to refine risk stratification.
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