Relationship among carotid atherosclerosis, plasma homocysteine and D-dimer level in patients with acute cerebral infarction

Objective To investigate the relationship among carotid atherosclerosis,plasma homocysteine and D-dimer level in patients with acute cerebral infarction.Methods Two hundred and eightyseven cases of patients with acute cerebral infarction treated in Pudong Hospital,Shanghai from January 2011 to March 2012 were enrolled into the observation group and 287 cases of healthy people not suffering from cerebral infarction or other patients had nothing to do with cerebrovascular disease were selected into the control group.The serum levels of plasma homocysteine were determined by fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) and D-dimer level by double antibody clip method.At the same time,neck vascular artery ultrasound were performed by MycoCardR Reader Ⅱ.The relationship of carotid atherosclerosis with plasma homocysteine and D-dimer were compared between these two groups.Results There were significant differences on total cholesterol ((4.25 ± 0.92) mmol/L vs (4.98 ± 0.88) mmol/L,t =3.244,P ＜ 0.05),triacylglycerol ((1.48 ±0.82) mmol/L vs (1.78 ± 1.09) mmol/L,t =3.564,P ＜ 0.05),low density lipoprotein ((2.52-0.76) mmol/L vs (2.92 ± 0.73) mmol/L,t =2.987,P ＜ 0.05),high-density lipoprotein ((1.38 ± 0.26) mmol/L vs (1.06± 0.29) mmol/L,t =3.964,P ＜ 0.05),systolic pressure ((130.28 ± 14.78) mm Hg vs (152.98 ± 20.45) mm Hg,t =3.264,P ＜ 0.05),diastolic pressure ((78.45 ± 16.02) mm Hg vs (93.81 ± 16.88) mm Hg,t =2.785,P ＜0.05) and common carotid artery IMT(left:(0.86 ±0.41)mm vs (1.18 ±0.25)mm,t =2.164,P ＜0.05;right:(0.87 ± 0.39)mm vs (1.12 ± 0.29)mm,t =2.254,P ＜ 0.05) between observation group and control group.Homocysteine concentration and the D-dimer level of patients with carotid atherosclerosis were significant higher than that without carotid atherosclerosis (homocysteine concentration:(12.89 ± 6.56) μnol/L vs (3.17 ± 0.12) μnol/L,t =2.324,P ＜ 0.05 ; D-dimer level:(1.53 ± 0.59) mg/L vs (0.33 ± 0.23) mg/L,t =2.753,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The plasma homocysteine concentration and the D-dimer levels are correlated with carotid atherosclerosis in patients with acute cerebral infarction. Key words: Acute cerebral infarction ;  Homocysteine;  D-dimer;  Carotid atherosclerosis