Association of coronary artery calcification and serum gamma-glutamyl transferase in Korean

Background and objective: Elevated serum gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) has been known to be associated with the cardiovascular disease. However, there is a lack of researches on direct examination of relevance between serum GGT and coronary artery calcification (CAC). Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between serum GGT levels and the prevalence of CAC in Korean.

Methods: The study population consisted of 14,439 male and female adults without coronary artery disease, who were conducted health examination from January 2010 to December 2010. The prevalence of CAC in relation to the quartile groups of serum GGT levels and odds ratio and 95% CI of CAC were analyzed using multiple logistic regression model.

Results: The prevalence of CAC increased with increasing GGT quartile (4.6%, 8.7%, 11.8% and 14.7% in the lowest, second, third, highest GGT quartiles, respectively; p < 0.001). In the logistic regression analysis adjusted for multiple variables, odds ratio (95% CI) for the prevalence of CAC comparing the 1st GGT quartile to the 4th quartile were 2.43 (1.94-3.05) for all subjects, 1.49 (1.21-1.85) for men and 1.33 (0.62-2.87) for women.

Conclusion: Elevated serum GGT levels were independently associated with the prevalence of CAC. Physicians and health care providers should be observant regarding future development of coronary artery disease among people with increasing concentration of serum GGT.