Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of arterial stiffness assessed using Cardio-ankle Vascular Index (CAVI) on long-term outcome after acute coronary syndrome (ACS).
Methods: A total of 387 consecutive patients (324 males; age, 64±11 years) with ACS were enrolled. We examined CAVI and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba PWV) as the parameters of arterial stiffness. The patients were divided into two groups according to the cut-off value of CAVI determined using the receiver operating characteristic curve for the prediction of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE): low-CAVI group, 177 patients with CAVI ＜8.35; high-CAVI group, 210 patients with CAVI ≥ 8.35. The primary endpoint was the incidence of MACE (cardiovascular death, recurrence of ACS, heart failure requiring hospitalization, or stroke).
Results: A total of 62 patients had MACE. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated a significantly higher probability of MACE in the high-CAVI group than in the low-CAVI group (median follow-up: 62 months; log-rank, p＜0.001). Multivariate analysis suggested that CAVI was an independent predictor of MACE (hazard ratio [HR], 1.496; p=0.02) and cardiovascular death (HR, 2.204; p=0.025), but ba PWV was not. We investigated the incremental predictive value of adding CAVI to the GRACE score (GRS), a validated scoring system for risk assessment in ACS. Stratified by CAVI and GRS, a significantly higher rate of MACE was seen in patients with both higher CAVI and higher GRS than the other groups (p＜0.001). Furthermore, the addition of CAVI to GRS enhanced net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) (NRI, 0.337, p=0.034; and IDI, 0.028, p=0.004).
Conclusion: CAVI was an independent long-term predictor of MACE, especially cardiovascular death, adding incremental clinical significance for risk stratification in patients with ACS.
Keywords: Acute coronary syndrome; Arterial stiffness; Cardio-ankle vascular index; GRACE risk score; Prognosis.