Search

Low-dose rivaroxaban was effective in secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in the COMPASS trial. There is no established role, however, for oral anticoagulants in primary prevention. We evaluated whether coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring identifies a high-risk primary prevention adult population who may benefit from low-dose rivaroxaban to prevent ASCVD events. We modeled expected outcomes of low-dose rivaroxaban in 5,196 Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) cohort participants not already on antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy. We applied relative risk ratios from COMPASS to absolute MESA event rates in order to estimate number needed to treat (NNT) to avoid a composite of cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke, as well as number needed to harm (NNH) to cause 1 hospitalized bleed; with both NNT and NNH stratified by calculated ASCVD risk and by baseline CAC. MESA participants with CAC ≥300 had crude ASCVD event rate of 20 per 1000 patient-years, which is comparable to that observed in the COMPASS control-arm. CAC was independently associated with the composite ASCVD outcome (p

It is unknown if lifelong exposure to increased hemodynamic stress from an elevated resting heart rate (HR) may contribute to aortic valve calcium (AVC). We performed multivariate regression analyses using data from 1,266 Framingham Heart Study (FHS) Offspring cohort participants and 6,764 Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) participants. We constructed a genetic risk score (GRS) for HR using summary-level data in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) AVC Consortium to investigate if there was evidence in favor of a causal relation. AVC was present in 39% of FHS Offspring cohort participants and in 13% of MESA cohort participants. In multivariate adjusted models, participants in the highest resting HR quartiles had significantly greater prevalence of AVC, with a prevalence ratio of 1.19 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99 to 1.44) for the FHS Offspring cohort and 1.32 (95% CI 1.12 to 1.63) for the MESA cohort, compared with those in the lowest quartile. There was a similar increase in the prevalence of AVC per standard deviation increase in resting HR in both FHS Offspring (prevalence ratio 1.08, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.15) and MESA (1.10, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.17). In contrast with these observational findings, a HR associated GRS was not significantly associated with AVC. Although our observational analysis indicates that a higher resting HR is associated with AVC, our genetic results do not support a causal relation. Unmeasured environmental and/or lifestyle factors associated with both increased resting HR and AVC that are not fully explained by covariates in our observational models may account for the association between resting HR and AVC.

Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration has been identified as a possible modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). We hypothesized that serum 25(OH)D concentration would be associated with calcifications of the left-sided heart valves, which are markers of CVD risk. Aortic valve calcium (AVC) and mitral annular calcium (MAC) were quantified from cardiac computed tomography scans performed on 5,530 Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis participants at the baseline examination (2000 to 2002) and at a follow-up visit at either Examination 2 (2002 to 2004) or Examination 3 (2004 to 2005). 25(OH)D was measured from serum samples collected at the baseline examination. Using relative risk regression, we evaluated the multivariable-adjusted risk of prevalent and incident AVC and MAC in this ethnically diverse population free of clinical CVD at baseline. The mean age of participants was 62 ± 10 years; 53% were women, 40% white, 26% black, 21% Hispanic, and 12% Chinese. Prevalent AVC and MAC were observed in 12% and 9% of study sample, respectively. There were no significant associations between 25(OH)D and prevalent AVC or MAC. Over a mean follow-up of 2.5 years, 4% developed incident AVC and 5% developed incident MAC. After adjusting for demographic variables, each 10 ng/ml higher serum 25(OH)D was associated with a 15% (relative risk 0.85, 95% confidence interval 0.74 to 0.98) lower risk of incident MAC but not AVC. However, this association was no longer significant after adjusting for lifestyle and CVD risk factors. Results suggest a possible link between serum 25(OH)D and the risk for incident MAC, but future studies with longer follow-up are needed to further test this association.

A stronger association for low-density lipoprotein particle (LDL-P) and high-density lipoprotein particle (HDL-P) versus cholesterol concentrations (LDL-C and HDL-C) in predicting coronary heart disease (CHD) has been noted. We evaluate the role of these factors and extent of particle-cholesterol discordance in those with diabetes mellitus (DM) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) for event prediction. In the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, we examined discordance of LDL and HDL (defined as a subject's difference between baseline particle and cholesterol percentiles), LDL-C, LDL-P, HDL-C, and HDL-P in relation to incident CHD and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in subjects with DM, MetS (without DM), or neither condition using Cox regression. Of the 6,417 subjects with 10-year follow-up, those with MetS (n = 1,596) and DM (n = 838) had significantly greater LDL and HDL discordance compared with those without these conditions. In discordance models, only LDL discordance (per SD) within the MetS group was positively associated with CHD events (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.22, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01 to 1.48, p