Measuring blood levels of vaspin could independently predict major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in patients who have suffered acute myocardial infarction (AMI), according to research published Jan. 16 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, potentially improving early risk stratification in heart attack survivors.
Serum vaspin (visceral adipose tissue-derived serpin), a relatively new addition to the adipokine family, has been linked to obesity and metabolism in a handful of animal studies, first author Xiang Zhou, MD, PhD, and co-authors said, but its relationship with CVD hasn’t been extensively explored.
“Over the past decade, significant progress has been made to identify various biomarkers that can facilitate risk stratification for AMI patients,” Zhou and colleagues wrote. “In recent years, growing evidence has demonstrated that vaspin is actively involved in the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases.”
Zhou et al. included 1,036 AMI patients in their cohort study, applying Cox regression analysis to determine the association between serum vaspin and MACE using fasting blood samples obtained at the time of each patient’s admission. The authors said the receiver operating characteristic curve significantly differentiated patients with MACE, with an optimal cutoff value of 0.62 ng/mL.
Low vaspin levels were a clear predictor of MACE during analysis—they were associated with a 26 percent increased instance of adverse events. A previous history of AMI, heart failure, hypertension or diabetes, Killip class, C-reactive protein levels and revascularization were also MACE indicators.
“Integrated discrimination and net reclassification improvements for MACE were significantly improved by addition of vaspin to the model of traditional risk factors,” Zhou and co-authors wrote. “Moreover, low vaspin was a valuable predictor of heart failure hospitalization (HR 0.58) and recurrent AMI (HR 0.72) after adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors.”
In the study, high levels of vaspin were associated with obesity and diabetes, which echoes the findings of previous trials. But the authors warned their work was conducted solely in a Chinese population, so researchers must be careful when extrapolating the results to other groups. Other limitations included the fact that the team didn’t perform serial measurements of vaspin post-AMI or combine vaspin with other biomarkers to predict the prognosis of AMI.
“Our study suggests that serum vaspin is an independent prognostic marker of MACE in AMI patients,” Zhou et al. wrote. “Further studies with longer follow-up are needed to investigate the predictive value of vaspin, to determine a cutoff value and to clarify its potential mechanisms.”
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.