ABSTRACT

Background: As a proposed cardiovascular risk factor, homocysteine is very intriguing compound for investigation in coronary artery disease.
Materials and methods: The homocysteine enzyme immunoassay was performed for the quantitative determination of total L-homocysteine in human EDTA-plasma in 56 patients of both gender undergoing coronary by-pass surgery. Appropriate statistical methods for estimation of data independence, distribution, mean values and correlation coefficients were applied.
Results: The main findings of the study are:
1) older patients tend to have higher values of homocysteine,
2) the patients with higher body mass index tend to have smaller value of homocysteine,
3) there was no enough data to conclude that patients with ejection fraction less than 45% tend to have a higher value of homocysteine,
4) the patients with multiple coronary artery disease tend to have a higher value of homocysteine,
5) the patients with hyperlipoproteinemia tend to have smaller value of homocysteine,
6) there was no any relationship between homocysteine value and hypertension,
7) the patients with diabetes mellitus tend to have a smaller value of homocysteine, and
8) the patients with previous infarction tend to have a higher value of homocysteine.
Conclusions: Although, the future investigation will be necessary to perform in order to evaluate relationship between decreasing of homocysteine value and coronary artery disease, it could be said that homocysteine has significant importance in patients undergoing coronary by-pass surgery.

Keywords: homocysteine, coronary artery disease

Correspondence:
Dragan M. Djuric, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.A.
Dedinje Cardiovascular Institute
Milan Tepic 1
11040 Belgrade, F.R.Yugoslavia
phone. (381) 11 36 70 933 / ext. 165 Fax. (381) 11 66 64 45
e_mail: drdjuric@eunet.yu