Abstract 158: Red Blood Cell Indices and Coronary Calcification in Patients Without a History of Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed to investigate associations of red cell distribution width (RDW), RBC mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) with coronary artery calcium score (CACS) in patients without history of coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 832 consecutive patients without history of CAD who presented with acute chest pain and underwent coronary artery calcium scoring by MDCT were included. Differences in CACS among multiple RBC indices categories which were high RDW (>55 fL) VS low-to-normal RDW, low MCV (<80 fL) VS normal-to-high MCV, low MCH (<27 pg) VS normal-to-high MCH, low MCHC (<31 g/dL) VS normal-to-high MCHC were statistically calculated. Results: The cohort comprised of 60% men (500 of 832) with mean age of 59±14 years. Median Framingham’s 10-year risk for cardiovascular disease was 4% (Interquartile range; IQR 1%-16%). Sixty percent of patients had zero CACS followed by 21.5% with CACS 1-100, 9.9% with CACS 101-400 and 8.1% with CACS>400. Mean ± SD of the RBC indices were 43±14 fL for RDW, 88±6 fL for MCV, 30±2 pg for MCH and 34±2 g/dL for MCHC. Compared to patients with normal-to-high MCV, those with low MCV (n=73) had significant lower CACS (0; IQR 0-5 VS 0; IQR 0-49; p 0.047). There was no statistically significant difference in CACS between RDW groups (p 0.45), MCH groups (p 0.19), MCHC groups (p 0.26) as shown in the figure. Multivariate analysis showed no statistically significant association of all the RBC indices with either CACS>0 (high RDW - p 0.83, low MCV - p 0.17, low MCH - p 0.26, low MCHC − p 0.06) or CACS>100 (high RDW - p 0.69, low MCV - p 0.18, low MCH - p 0.93, low MCHC − p 0.77). Conclusion: Our study did not show significant association of RDW, MCV, MCH and MCHC with either presence or severity of coronary calcification in patients without history of CAD