Correlation of cardiovascular risk scores with myocardial high-energy phosphate metabolism

Abstract

The aim of our current work was to prove the association of myocardial high-energy phosphate metabolism measured by MR spectroscopy with validated cardiovascular risk scores, such as the European Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) Project [1], the German PROspective CArdiovascular Munster (PROCAM) Study [2] and the US Framingham Heart and Offspring Studies [3]. We used the ratio of phosphocreatinine (PCr) to β-adenosine-triphosphate (β-ATP) as a surrogate for the energy metabolism of the myocardium [4,5]. PCr-β-ATP ratios are reduced in patients with coronary heart disease [4,5], hypertension [6], and our previous studies suggested cardiovascular risk factors such as hypercholesterolemia [7], diabetes [8] or age [9] to be involved in this process. Therefore we hypothesized a relationship between established primary-event risk scores [1–3] and myocardial high-energy phosphate metabolism. Fasting blood samples of ninety-nine healthy asymptomatic volunteers without history of coronary heart disease were obtained to evaluate cardiovascular risk factors. All of the volunteers underwent cycle ergometry and echocardiography to exclude a latent coronary insufficiency and/or a reduced left ventricular function. Tabulated cardiovascular risk factors and parameters are shown in Table 1. For each patient the cardiovascular risk was assessed by: