Ischemia and Inflammatory Markers Among Patients With Coronary Artery Ectasia

Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is a dilation of the coronary artery lumen. The term "ectasia" refers to diffuse dilation of a coronary artery, while focal coronary dilation is called a "coronary aneurysm." The definition of coronary artery ectasia is a dilatation exceeding more than one-third of the coronary artery length with the diameter of the dilated segment measuring more than 1.5 times the diameter of a normal adjacent segment. Coronary artery ectasia is well recognized, but uncommon findings encountered during diagnostic coronary angiography.

inflammation, platelet activation, endothelial dysfunction, microvascular dysfunction, slow flow and vascular remodeling have all been suggested to play a role .

. Available evidence implies that CAE is not a mere variant of CAD; indeed diabetes is negatively associated with CAE and studies pinpoint a critical inflammatory component

Turbulent slow flow within dilated coronaries may lead to platelet activation, thrombosis and eventually acute coronary syndrome Local coronary flow disturbances caused by decreased endothelial shear stress has also been proposed as an alternative explanation for the coexistence of CAD and CAE. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) evidence suggests that atherosclerotic plaques within ectatic regions of vessels are highly inflamed and meet high-risk plaque criteria

Mediators of chronic inflammation, such as growth factors and cellular adhesion models, have been widely described in the pathogenesis of CAE. Specifically, the expression of specific inflammatory markers, particularly IL-6 and CRP, is known to be higher in CAE compared with CAD and healthy controls . Most recently, a large meta-analysis elucidated the role of other contributory markers, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red cell distribution width (RDW), in the pathogenesis of CAE