Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2, fasting blood glucose, and granulocyte count for diagnosing coronary heart...

Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2) is a promising inflammatory biomarker for coronary heart disease (CHD). This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of Lp-PLA2, both alone and in combination with fasting blood glucose (FBG) and granulocyte count (GC), while exploring age- and sex-specific diagnostic thresholds.

This retrospective case-control study enrolled 206 CHD patients and 89 non-CHD controls. Serum biomarkers were measured, multivariable logistic regression identified independent risk factors, and diagnostic performance was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

Sex, hypertension, diabetes, Lp-PLA2, FBG, and GC were identified as independent risk factors for CHD. ROC analysis revealed optimal cutoff values of 137 μg/L for Lp-PLA2 (AUC = 0.913), 6.8 mmol/L for FBG (AUC = 0.611), and 4.5 × 10⁹ /L for GC (AUC = 0.687). The combined model achieved an AUC of 0.917, with sensitivity of 0.956 and specificity of 0.708 at a predicted probability threshold of 0.4.

Elevated serum Lp-PLA2 and GC were independently associated with CHD, whereas FBG showed an inverse adjusted association that should be interpreted cautiously. Lp-PLA2 showed the highest diagnostic efficacy, while combined assessment improved sensitivity. The proposed age- and sex-specific cutoffs may provide preliminary subgroup-specific reference values that require external validation.