The University of Uppsala, Sweden is a world class research institution recognized for the performance of their Medical Science departments (commonly ranked in the top 100). The following article “Improved Identification of Patients with Coronary Artery Disease by the Use of New Lipid and Lipoprotein Biomarkers” is no exception.
The research team lead by Nina Johnston, MD, PhD demonstrated that oxidized LDL identified more patients with coronary artery disease than any other currently available biomarker test, including total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and Lp-PLA2, and did so with degree of accuracy 1.43 times greater than native LDL.
The comparison between lipid and lipoprotein biomarkers, the percent of coronary artery disease patients in each quintile, diagnostic accuracy based on the AUC of receiver-operating curves, and the odds ratio are listed below:
Also attached is a key study published in the September 2008 issue of Disease Markers titled “The Oxidation Ratio of LDL: A Predictor For Coronary Artery Disease” that confirms and extends the work by Nina Johnston, MD, PhD described above. It is noteworthy that the Oxidation Ratio of LDL study performed by the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, Peoples Republic of China used Mercodia’s competitive assay, with diagnostic accuracy results in the 0.96 range. Nina Johnston’s study used Mercodia’s sandwich assay.
Data in table 1C shows the separation between normal controls, dyslipidemia controls, stable angina, unstable angina, and acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Data in Figure 1C clearly demonstrates the correlation between increasing levels of the oxidation ratio of LDL and the progression of CAD. In the most advanced stage of CAD, the authors “found that the level of oxLDL was more than six times higher in patients with AMI than in control subjects. This strongly suggests oxLDL could serve as a marker for cardiovascular events.”
For comparison purposes, the level of native LDL was 1.28 times higher in patients with AMI than in control subjects without dyslipidemia.
It is difficult to estimate the impact oxLDL will have in the Peoples Republic of China, but with a population in excess of 1.3 billion, China may become a major player in the not too distant future.