Cytokine profile of patients with coronary artery calcification without ischemic heart disease.

Objective: to study the cytokine profile in patients with coronary calcification of varying severity, without clinical manifestations of coronary artery disease. Materials and methods: the study included 68 male patients matched for age, including 25 people with coronary atherocalcinosis — corresponding to the moderate-risk group (group 1), 23 people with coronary atherocalcinosis — corresponding to the high-risk group (group 2) and 20 respondents of the control group, without clinical manifestations of coronary artery disease, for whom the coronary index was calculated using the Agatston method. Exclusion criteria were: diabetes mellitus, oncopathology, connective tissue diseases, chronic viral infections. Coronary calcium (CC) assessment and Agatston index calculation were performed using Smart Score software for coronary calcium calculation. Serum cytokine levels (IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, FNO-α and IFN-γ) were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with Cytokine test systems from Cytokin LLC, St. Petersburg, Russia. Statistical analysis of the study results was performed using Statistica 12.0 (StatSoft, USA). Results: elevated proinflammatory cytokine values were detected in both coronary calcification groups. Assessment of proinflammatory to antiinflammatory cytokine ratio indices reflects polarization of the cytokine profile in patients with coronary calcification via the proinflammatory pathway and prevalence of anti-inflammatory reserve in patients with less severe coronary artery calcification. Conclusion: a comprehensive assessment of the cytokine profile in patients with varying degrees of coronary calcification without clinical manifestations of coronary artery disease is demonstrated, showing the predominance of the proinflammatory response in both groups while maintaining suppressive immunoregulatory effects in patients with less pronounced coronary calcification. The data obtained are not unambiguous due to the peculiarities of the pleiotropic effect of cytokines, which requires a comparison of the results with quantitative and functional indicators of immunocompetent cells responsible for their synthesis.

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