Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Oct 26, 2015; 7(10): 609-620
Published online Oct 26, 2015. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v7.i10.609
Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 prognostic role in atherosclerotic complications
Giuseppe Maiolino, Valeria Bisogni, Giacomo Rossitto, Gian Paolo Rossi
Giuseppe Maiolino, Valeria Bisogni, Giacomo Rossitto, Gian Paolo Rossi, Department of Medicine - DIMED, Hypertension Clinic, University of Padua, 35128 Padova, Italy
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this paper.
Supported by FORICA (the FOundation for Advanced Research in Hypertension and Cardiovascular diseases, www.forica.it).
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Gian Paolo Rossi, MD, FACC, FAHA, Professor, Department of Medicine - DIMED, Hypertension Clinic, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani, 2, 35128 Padova, Italy. gianpaolo.rossi@unipd.it
Telephone: +39-049-8212279 Fax: +39-049-8217873
Received: February 24, 2015
Peer-review started: February 26, 2015
First decision: May 18, 2015
Revised: August 19, 2015
Accepted: September 25, 2015
Article in press: September 28, 2015
Published online: October 26, 2015
Processing time: 252 Days and 7.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2) is a promising new marker of atherosclerotic plaque destabilization, which plays a key role in the metabolism of pro-inflammatory phospholipids and in the generation of pro-atherogenic metabolites. This review focuses on the experimental and clinical studies supporting use of Lp-PLA2 for predicting cardiovascular events considering not only Lp-PLA2 activity and mass, but also Lp-PLA2 gene variations. Based on current evidences the major scientific societies have included Lp-PLA2 activity measurement in their guidelines among the biomarkers that are useful in risk stratification of adult asymptomatic patients at intermediate cardiovascular risk.