The Relationship Between Laboratory Parameters and Coronary Slow Flow

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Emergency Medicine
• Clinical Biochemistry

Background:

• Chest pain is a common emergency department (ED) presentation with diverse etiologies.
• Coronary slow flow (CSF) is increasingly recognized as a clinical syndrome, not just an angiographic finding.
• Identifying predictive laboratory markers for CSF in the ED is crucial for timely diagnosis and management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify specific laboratory parameters that indicate coronary slow flow.
• To evaluate the diagnostic utility of inflammatory markers in predicting CSF among patients presenting with chest pain.

Main Methods:

• A case-control study involving 107 patients with primary coronary slow flow and 108 controls without cardiac pathology.
• Patients presented to the ED with chest pain and underwent coronary angiography between 2019 and 2023.
• Comparison of demographic, laboratory, clinical, and angiographic data between the CSF group and the control group.

Main Results:

• Coronary artery dominance differed between groups, with Cx dominance in the CSF group and RCA dominance in controls (p < 0.001).
• C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were significantly elevated in the CSF patient group (p < 0.001).
• The CRP/albumin ratio was also significantly higher in patients with coronary slow flow (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• Elevated levels of the inflammatory markers CRP and the CRP/albumin ratio are statistically significant in patients with coronary slow flow.
• These laboratory parameters demonstrate potential as predictive tools for identifying coronary slow flow within the emergency department setting.