The Relationship between Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate and Myocardial Infarction: A Case-Control Study

Introduction: More than a century passed through the use of the Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) test; however, it is still in use due to its low cost and ease of use. One of the secondary diagnostic cases of this test is for cardiac ischemia followed by Myocardial Infarction (MI). These patients often have no evidence of specific cardiac enzymes, laboratory analysis or pathologic electrocardiogram findings. The objective of this study is to determine the efficacy of ESR and its relationship with MI as a potential indicator for MI prognosis. Methods: This study was performed in Mazandaran Hear Center as a hospital-based case-control in 2018 with 208 participants included 103 cases and 105 controls, matched by sex and age. All cases were positive for MI according to electrocardiography and troponin test. Controls were negative for troponin test with no history of myocardial infarction. According to Westergren method, whole blood of the patients have mixed with sodium citrate in a standardized calibrated tube, which are allowed to sit for 60 minutes in the LENA ESR analyzer to measure the sedimentation level. We used Levene s test for equality of variances and t-test for equality of means. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 16.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used for data analysis. The cut-off point for P-value was set at 0.05. Results: Of all participants, 55 (53.3%) of cases and 54 (51.4%) of controls were male with mean age of 61.9 (±13.9) in cases and 61.9 (±13.3) in controls. Average ESR level in cases was 47.0 mm/hr (±48.7) and in controls was 28.5 (±27.3). Independent samples test showed a significant relationship between ESR level and MI (P-value=0.001). Conclusion: This investigation indicated that high levels of ESR could be in relation with MI. Therefore, according to our findings, ESR can be consider as a prognostic factor for monitoring of patients with MI to prevent the heart acute attacks. However, more widespread investigations in various areas need to be conducted to avoid the geographical and race biases, which may affect the case.

کلیدواژه ها:

Myocardial Infarction ، Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate ، Prognosis