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Association of red cell distribution width with the presence of coronary artery ectasia.

BACKGROUND
Red cell distribution width (RDW) has recently been considered as a strong predictor of a variety of acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases, while the association between RDW and coronary artery ectasia (CAE) has not been elucidated yet. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association of RDW levels in the presence of the CAE.


METHODS
One hundred and sixty-four consecutive patients including 84 patients (69 male, mean age: 55 +/- 11 years) with isolated CAE and 60 angiographically normal controls (48 male, mean age: 52 +/- 13 years) were enrolled. Blood samples were drawn to measure RDW and C-reactive protein (CRP). Baseline clinical characteristics and laboratory findings were compared between the two groups.


RESULTS
The levels of RDW were significantly higher in patients with isolated CAE than that in normal controls (12.94 +/- 2.1 vs. 12.48 +/- 1.4, p = 0.021). In addition, the levels of CRP were also higher in patients with CAE compared with normal controls (0.28 +/- 0.14 mg/L vs. 0.21 +/- 0.11 mg/L, p = 0.047). The multivariate analysis indicated that RDW and CRP were the independent variables most strongly associated with the presence of isolated CAE. Finally, correlation analysis suggested that there was positive correlation between plasma levels of CRP and RDW levels in patients with CAE (n = 84, gamma = 0.358, p = 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The data demonstrated that RDW levels were significantly higher in patients with isolated CAE, suggesting that RDW may be a valuable marker for the patients with CAE.