2944 The Effects of Liver Disease on Cardiovascular Mortality Among Patients With Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The mediating effect of liver disease on cardiac diseases has not been comprehensively outlined in the medical literature. Liver disease can increase your risk of heart disease which remains the leading cause of death in the United States. In this study, we looked at the overview of the mediating effect of liver disease on patients diagnosed with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and how this affects death due to cardiovascular disease. METHODS: We selected patients with a death record from the second-generation Framingham Heart Study database and performed descriptive and analytical tests. Unadjusted tests to understand the variables associated with cardiovascular death were based on t-test and chi-square test when appropriate. A mediation analysis was conducted with patients diagnosed with cardiovascular disease as the independent variable and patients diagnosed with liver disease as the mediator while controlling for possible confounders. RESULTS: Liver disease was not a significant mediator for death due to CVD among patients diagnosed with CVD (P = 0.5882) and only 0.13% of CVD death is attributed to the mediation of liver disease. However, the effect of those diagnosed with CVD on CVD death and the total effect of those diagnosed with CVD and liver disease on CVD death were both statistically significant (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.0017, respectively). CONCLUSION: Liver disease does not significantly mediate CVD death among patients diagnosed with CVD. However, our study is limited to death due to CVD. Furthermore, the death record only contains information on a single cause of death. Patients could have died from multiple complications, but the death records did not collect this data.