Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Exp Med. Feb 20, 2015; 5(1): 21-32
Published online Feb 20, 2015. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v5.i1.21
Consolidated and emerging inflammatory markers in coronary artery disease
Valter Lubrano, Silvana Balzan
Valter Lubrano, Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Silvana Balzan, Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Author contributions: Lubrano V drafted the text; Balzan S contributed to the review and literature search.
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: Dr. Valter Lubrano, Fondazione G. Monasterio CNR-Regione Toscana, Via Moruzzi n° 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy. walterl@ifc.cnr.it
Telephone: +39-050-3152199 Fax: +39-050-3153454
Received: August 13, 2014
Peer-review started: August 14, 2014
First decision: September 28, 2014
Revised: October 30, 2014
Accepted: November 19, 2014
Article in press: November 19, 2014
Published online: February 20, 2015
Abstract

Coronary artery disease is an event of atherosclerosis characterized by a chronic vascular inflammation. Risk factors like obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, smoking, hypercholesterolemia and positive family history sometimes are not sufficiently adequate to the enhancement of cardiovascular risk assessment. In the past years numerous biomarkers, like C reactive protein, cytokines and adhesion molecules, have been observed to be related to adverse cardiovascular prognosis. Recently, several studies found an association among inflammatory biomarkers and cardiovascular diseases suggesting their utility to identify the risk of an acute ischemic event and the detection of vulnerable plaques. The emerging inflammatory markers are well divided for diagnosis and prognosis and plaque instability of coronary artery disease. Some of them, the lectin-like oxidized low density lipoprotein receptor-1 can be important both in diagnosis and in the evaluation of plaque instability, other are inserted in the above reported classification. The emerging inflammatory markers in acute-phase include amyloid A, fibrinogen and pentraxin 3 while myeloperoxidase, myeloid-related protein 8/14 and pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A are recognize markers of plaque instability. Lastly, some studies demonstrated that circulating miRNAs are involved in coronary artery disease, acute myocardial infarction and heart failure.

Keywords: Coronary artery disease, Plaque instability, Inflammation, Acute phase, Biomarkers

Core tip: In this review we want to focus the reader’s attention on the differences between inflammatory markers of cardiovascular risk already accepted by the scientific community and the emerging markers in order to encourage the healthcare services to improve laboratory techniques in early diagnosis and more precise evaluation of the risk. Is also important to use a classification according to the stage where the patient is located regarding emerging inflammatory markers for diagnosis, prognosis and plaque instability.