Chronic kidney disease and coronary artery vulnerable plaques

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a risk factor of cardiovascular disease. The number of yellow plaques is a predictor of future cardiovascular events. We assumed that CKD might raise the risk of cardiovascular events by increasing the number of yellow plaques. Therefore, we compared the number of yellow plaques between patients with and without CKD.

Consecutive 136 patients with acute myocardial infarction who received percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and angioscopic examination were analyzed. The infarct-related artery was angioscopically examined. The number of yellow plaques, maximum yellow color grade of detected yellow plaques, and prevalence of disrupted yellow plaques in nonculprit segments were compared between patients with and without CKD.

The number of yellow plaques was significantly larger in CKD than in non-CKD patients (median [interquartile range]: 4.0 [2.0 to 6.0] versus 2.0 [1.0 to 4.0], P = 0.001). Maximum yellow color grade and prevalence of disrupted plaques in the nonculprit segments were not different between patients with and without CKD. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed CKD as an independent risk of multiple yellow plaques per vessel (odds ratio 3.49, 95% confidence interval 1.10 to 11.10, P = 0.03).

CKD was an independent risk factor of multiple coronary yellow plaques, suggesting that patients with CKD would have a higher risk of coronary events because they had more yellow plaques than patients without CKD.