Vascular inflammation and aortic stiffness: potential mechanisms of increased vascular risk in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a complex inflammatory condition in which an important extra-pulmonary manifestation is cardiovascular disease. We hypothesized that COPD patients would have increased aortic inflammation and stiffness, as candidate mechanisms mediating increased cardiovascular risk, compared to two negative control groups: healthy never-smokers and smokers without COPD. We also studied patients with COPD due to alpha-?1 antitrypsin deficiency (?1ATD) as a comparator lung disease group. METHODS:Participants underwent 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography imaging to quantify aortic inflammation as the tissue-to-blood-ratio (TBR) of FDG uptake. Aortic stiffness was measured by carotid-femoral aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV). RESULTS:Eighty-five usual COPD (COPD due to smoking), 12 ?1ATD-COPD patients and 12 each smokers and never-smokers were studied. There was no difference in pack years smoked between COPD patients and smokers (45?±?25 vs 37?±?19, p?=?0.36), but ?1ATD patients smoked significantly less (19?±?11, p?

SUBMITTER: Fisk M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5968523 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature