Plasma miR-502-5p and coronary artery vasospasm: An exploratory study

Coronary artery vasospasm (CAV) is a major cause of myocardial ischemia in patients without obstructive coronary disease. Its detection remains challenging due to the lack of biomarkers. We investigated circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential biomarkers for CAV.

The ANFIBIO study is a prospective, multicenter cohort study that enrolled consecutive patients presenting with chest pain of presumed coronary origin (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05374694). Patients were referred for invasive physiological evaluation. For this substudy, only those who underwent a coronary vasospasm test were included (n=70). Circulating miRNA profiling was performed using RT-qPCR.

The mean age of participants was 66.5 years and 40.0% were women. The prevalence of hypertension, dyslipidemia, and diabetes mellitus was 72.9%, 61.4% and 20.0%, respectively. Patients with CAV showed a higher use of oral nitrates. Notably, most individuals with undetectable plasma levels of miR-502-5p exhibited CAV (60%). Accordingly, detectability was used as the primary representation of miR-502-5p in further analyses. Adding miR-502-5p to a clinical model (age, sex, smoking status, nitrate use and transferrin concentration) was associated with a numerically higher AUC (0.74-0.81) and improved reclassification metrics (NRI=0.533; IDI=0.079).

In this cohort, plasma miR-502-5p was associated with CAV and showed exploratory incremental value when added to a clinical model. These findings should be considered hypothesis-generating and require further validation in larger and independent cohorts.