The comparison of serum visfatin levels in patients with acute PTE and non-PTE independent of BMI

Abstract

Background: Obesity is recognized as a major risk factor for thrombotic disorders such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, and venous thromboembolism. Objective: We aimed to compare the serum visfatin levels in patients with acute pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) and non-PTE who had similar BMI. Design: We prospectively compared the serum visfatin levels of 49 acute PTE patients diagnosed by contrast-enhanced spiral computed chest tomography (CT) and 32 healthy volunteers. We also analyzed the short term mortality in the acute PTE group. Results: The visfatin level was lower in the PTE group than in the non-PTE group [6.2 ng/mL (IQR 4.9-8.7) and 6.7 ng/mL (IQR 5.0-8.9), respectively], but the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Visfatin levels were higher in acute PTE patients with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (n=18) than in those without DVT (n=31), but the difference was also statistically not significant [visfatin; 6.3 ng/mL (IQR 5.3-15.6) and 5.8 ng/mL (IQR 4.5-8.5), respectively, p>0.05]. The serum visfatin was not correlated with age, body mass index (BMI), highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and white blood cell (WBC) count and D-dimer (p>0.05). All cause 30 day mortality rate was 4.1% (n=2) in the PTE group and visfatin levels were 30.1 ng/mL and 9.1 ng/mL in the two patients that died. Conclusions: Although the serum visfatin levels were lower in the acute PTE group than in the non-PTE group both of which had similar BMI, the difference was not statistically significant. Further and larger studies are needed to evaluate the visfatin levels in acute PTE.