Homocysteine levels as a measure of myocardial damage

Plasma homocysteine levels are positively correlated with the extent of ischemic myocardial damage in patients presenting with acute coronary syndromes (ACS), a multicenter research team report in Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Al-Obaidi and colleagues studied 390 consecutive patients who presented with acute myocardial infarction (MI) or unstable angina pectoris (UA). Analysis of clinical and biochemical parameters revealed that there was a significant increase in peak cardiac troponin T (cTnT) levels in the highest homocysteine quintile (7.85 μg/l, p<0.0001 for top versus bottom quintile). The authors also report a step-up in peak cTnT levels in the top homocysteine quintile, although this was restricted to UA patients (p<0.0001 for analysis of variance, p<0.0001 for top versus bottom quintile). Multivariate regression analysis showed that cTnT levels were influenced by greater age, thrombolysis and a final diagnosis of MI, as well as by homocysteine levels in...