Impaired Endothelial Glycocalyx Predicts Adverse Outcome in Subjects Without Overt Cardiovascular Disease: a 6-Year Follow-up Study

Ignatios Ikonomidis, John Thymis, Panagiotis Simitsis, Georgia-Angeliki Koliou, Spiridon Katsanos, Charilaos Triantafyllou, Foteini Kousathana, George Pavlidis, Aikaterini Kountouri, Eftihia Polyzogopoulou, Konstantinos Katogiannis, Dimitrios Vlastos,
Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research 28 Oct 2021

Abstract

We investigated whether disturbance of glycocalyx integrity is related with increased cardiovascular risk. In 600 healthy subjects, we measured perfused boundary region (PBR), a marker of glycocalyx integrity, in sublingual microvessels with diameter ranging 5ā€“25 Āµm using a dedicated camera (Sideview Darkfield Imaging). Increased PBR indicates reduced glycocalyx thickness. We prospectively monitored the occurrence of cardiovascular events (MACE-death, myocardial infarction, and stroke) during a 6-year follow-up. Fifty-seven MACE were documented. Increased values of PBR5-25 predicted higher risk for MACE in a model including sex, age, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, family history of coronary disease, treatment with ACEi/ARBs, or lipid-lowering agents (hazard ratio (HR), 6.44, pā€‰=ā€‰0.011; net reclassification improvement (NRI), 28%; C-statistic: 0.761). PBR5-25 was an independent and additive predictor of outcome when added in a model including the European Heart SCORE, diabetes, family history of CAD, and medication (HR, 4.71; NRI: 39.7%, C-statistic from 0.653 to 0.693; pā€‰<ā€‰0.01).Glycocalyx integrity is an independent and additive predictor to risk factors for MACE at 6-year follow-up in individuals without cardiovascular disease. ClinicalTrials.govIdentifier:NCT04646252.