Chronic inflammatory status in patients with coronary artery ectasia.

Background: Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is well-recognized, angiographic finding of abnormal coronary dilatation. The role of inflammation in atherosclerosis is increasingly well known. However, the association between inflammation and CAE has been controversial.

Method: Fifty-five patients with CAE and non-obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), 38 with obstructive CAD, and 33 angiographically normal coronary controls were enrolled in the study. The peripheral blood was taken, and white blood cell count (WBCC) as well as other leukocyte subtypes including neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocyte cell count (MCC) were measured. The plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were determined by ELISA.

Results: The higher number of WBCC, neutrophil and MCC were found in patients with CAE compared with obstructive CAD patients as well as normal controls (p<0.01, respectively). Moreover, levels of plasma CRP and IL-6 were also significantly higher in patients with CAE than that in patients with obstructive CAD, and subjects without coronary artery disease (p<0.001, respectively). Univariate analysis showed that the sex, current smoking, numbers of WBCC, neutrophil, MCC, levels of CRP and IL-6 were related with CAE, while MCC was independently linked with a diagnosis of CAE. CRP was the independent variable most strongly associated with CAE by multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: Taken together, this study confirmed and expanded previous limited findings that a more significant chronic inflammation might be linked with the pathogenesis of CAE that was associated with not only inflammatory markers but also inflammatory cells in patients with CAE.