The association of serum lipoprotein(a) levels with myocardial infarction and ictus cerebri in the elderly

Summary tudy was aimed at revealing the relationship between the serum concentrations of lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], the coronary atherosclerotic disease (CAD) and the cerebral vasculopathies (CVP) in elderly patients. A group of 117 patients (66 women and 51 men, mean age 83 ± 5.8 years) was investigated. Of them, 58 suffered from acute myocardial infarct (AMI) and 59 from ictus cerebri (IC). The parameters were compared with those obtained from a control-group of 88 old people without any recent clinical history of cerebrovasculopathy or atherosclerotic coronariopathy. In the patients with AMI, the average serum value of Lp(a) was 40.8 ± 18.5 mg%, and in those suffering from IC, it was 46.7 ± 13.2 mg%; the differences of these averages against the mean found in the control patients (23.2 ± 11.5 mg%) were statistically significant (p < 0.01). One can conclude that an increased Lp(a) is of diagnostic value for the presence of both IC and AMI, and represents a risk factor for cerebrovasculopathies, too.