Prothrombin 20210A Allele May Not Be an Independent Risk Factor for Myocardial Infarction

The G- A transition at position 20210 in the prothrombin gene is a genetic risk factor for venous thrombosis.Nevertheless, it is not clear if the prothrombin 20210A allele is also a genetic risk factor for arterial thrombosis.We studied 124 patients with myocardial infarction (MI) and 182 healthy individuals to assess the possible correlation betweenprothrombin gene polymorphism and MI. In addition, we analyzed 42 MI patients, who were selected as having no other secondaryrisk factors and who thus have a potential genetic predisposition to infarction.The frequencies of heterozygous carriers of the 20210A polymorphism of the gene (% GA genotype) were calculated as follows:among the 124 patients with MI 3.23%, 42 selected patients 9.53% and among the 46 selected controls 4.35%. The prothrombin20210A allele was detected by allele specific polymerase chain reaction.We found no correlation between the prothrombin 20210A allele and MI. This study supports the view of that prothrombin 20210Apolymorphism is not an independent risk factor for MI.