Heart News
July 2, 2007
Research Highlighting Myeloperoxidase (MPO) as a Blood Marker for Heart Disease Appears in Most Recent Issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology
Cleveland Clinic researchers have found that elevated levels of the enzyme myeloperoxidase (MPO) in the blood can serve as a predictor for future heart attacks among otherwise healthy individuals, years before they experience symptoms.
The research led by Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, Head of the Section of Preventive Cardiology & Rehabilitation at Cleveland Clinic and S Matthijs Boekholdt, MD, PhD, Department of Vascular Medicine, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, appears in the July 10 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study examined MPO levels in a subset of subjects participating in the EPIC-Norfolk study, a community-based population study (n=25,663) of apparently healthy men and women a between 40 and 79 years old.
"This study shows for the first time that testing for MPO levels in apparently healthy individuals can help identify those who are at risk of developing coronary artery disease or having heart attacks over the ensuing six-year period," Dr. Hazen said. "MPO was able to help discriminate individuals at risk who would otherwise gone undetected by more widely used tests which examine the level of LDL and HDL cholesterol or C-reactive protein (CRP) in the blood stream, the generally accepted predictors of heart disease."
Previous work by Dr. Hazen and his team determined that High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL), the major carrier of “good” cholesterol in blood, becomes dysfunctional when myeloperoxidase (MPO), an enzyme present in white blood cells, inhibits HDL’s ability to keep cholesterol from building up in the artery walls.
Dr Hazen’s group also previously showed that elevated levels of MPO in blood can signal that a person experiencing chest pains is in imminent danger of suffering a heart attack, needing revascularization or of dying. The new research suggests the potential for wider application of MPO levels as a predictor of heart disease and heart attacks among populations at lower risk and who are not yet exhibiting symptoms.
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The Lerner Research Institute is home to Cleveland Clinic’s laboratory-based and translational biomedical research. Its mission is to understand the causes of human diseases and to develop new treatments and cures. The Lerner Research Institute’s total annual research expenditures exceed $120 million from Federal agencies, non-Federal societies and associations, endowment funds and the Cleveland Clinic. More than 1,100 people (including about 160 investigators, 350 junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows, and 120 graduate students) work in research programs focusing on cardiovascular, cancer, neurologic, musculoskeletal, allergic and immunologic, eye, metabolic, and infectious disease. The Institute also is an integral part of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University – training the next generation of physician-scientists.
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Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation’s best hospitals in its annual "America’s Best Hospitals" survey. Approximately 1,500 full-time salaried physicians at Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Florida represent more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties. In 2005, there were 2.9 million outpatient visits to Cleveland Clinic. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 80 countries. There were nearly 54,000 hospital admissions to Cleveland Clinic in 2005.
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