The biomarker measures inflammation in fats surrounding blood vessels in heart
A novel imaging biomarker which measures inflammation in fats surrounding blood vessels in heart can lead to early detection of people at greater risk of heart attacks.
A new research describing this biomarker has been published in The Lancet. It was led by a team from Cleveland Clinic, University of Oxford and University of Erlangen.
The contribution of non-communicable diseases in India have risen from 30% of the total disease burden in 1990 to 55% in 2016, according to the first state level disease burden study 2017. In 2016, ischaemic heart diseases was the number one cause of death in India among non-communicable diseases.
Coronary artery inflammation slows down fatty tissue formation surrounding the blood vessels, known as perivascular fat. Researchers developed the perivascular fat attenuation index (FAI) as an imaging biomarker to quantify inflammation-induced changes in perivascular fat.
FAI captures coronary inflammation by mapping the changes in perivascular fat on coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA). This enables early detection of coronary inflammation, leading to detection of people at increased risk of heart attacks. CTA is the imaging technique carried out for detection of stenosis or obstructions in blood vessels in the heart.
“This is an exciting new technology which has the potential for providing a simple, non-invasive answer to detect patients at risk for future fatal heart attacks”
“This is an exciting new technology which has the potential for providing a simple, non-invasive answer to detect patients at risk for future fatal heart attacks,” said co-first author Milind Desai, M.D., Cleveland Clinic cardiologist.
Higher perivascular FAI values indicating greater coronary inflammation were associated with significantly higher rates of death from any cause and death from cardiac causes, in both groups.
“This new technology may prove transformative for primary and secondary prevention. For the first time we have a set of biomarkers, derived from a routine test that is already used in everyday clinical practice, that measures what we call the ‘residual cardiovascular risk’, currently missed by all risk scores and non-invasive tests,” said Charalambos Antoniades, M.D., who led the study at the University of Oxford’s Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.
