The assesment of endothelial functions of patients with coronary artery ectasia by flow mediated dilatation technique

Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is defined as dilatation of a part of the epicardial coronary artery 1.5 times or greater than that of an adjacent normal segment without obstructive lesion. The ectasia cases without any obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) is defined as isolated CAE. The incidence of isolated CAE in coronary angiographies (CAG) is 0,12-1,3 %. In this study we aimed to compare the endothelial functions of isolated CAE patients with the endothelial functions of patients with normal coronary arteries by using flow mediated dilatation (FMD) technique.According to their CAG between January 2007 and January 2009 in coronary angiography and catheterization laboratory at Afyon Kocatepe University Medical Faculty Cardiology Department, 30 patients with CAE, and 30 patients with normal coronary arteries were enrolled in this study. The endothelial functions of the patients were compared with FMD technique. Also routine blood chemistry, transtorasic echocardiographies of each groups were compared.The mean age, gender, body mass index, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, the systolic and diastolic blood pressures and heart rates during the study of two groups enrolled in this study were similar. Also blood chemistry parameters, fasting glucose, serum creatinine, trigliserides, HDL-cholesterol values of the groups were similar. But mean LDL-cholesterol of CAE group was significantly higher than the mean LDL-cholesterol of normal coronary artery group. And mean total cholesterol of CAE group was similar to the mean total cholesterol of normal coronary artery group. No statistical differences were found about conventional transtorasic echocardiography parameters between two groups. There was no differences between basal brachial artery diameters of two groups but, mean FMD of CAE group was significantly lower than the mean FMD of normal coronary artery group.In conclusion in this study we compared the endothelial functions of isolated CAE patients with the endothelial functions of patients with normal coronary arteries by using FMD technique. We found endothelial dysfunction in patients with CAE. Also we found statistically significant difference between LDL-cholesterol levels of two groups. So we think that hyperlipidemia could have played a role in the etiology of CAE and endothelial dysfuntion.Key Words: Coronary artery ectasia, normal coronary arteries, endothelial dysfuntion, flow mediated dilatation, hyperlipidemia.