The summaries are free for public
use. The Chronic Liver Disease
Foundation will continue to add and
archive summaries of articles deemed
relevant to CLDF by the Board of
Trustees and its Advisors.
Abstract Details
Association of Hepatic Steatosis With Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events, Independent of Coronary Artery Disease
Nandini M Meyersohn1, Thomas Mayrhofer2, Kathleen E Corey3, Daniel O Bittner4, Pedro V Staziaki5, Balint Szilveszter5, Travis Hallett5, Michael T Lu5, Stefan B Puchner6, Tracey G Simon3, Borek Foldyna5, Deepak Voora7, Geoffrey S Ginsburg7, Pamela S Douglas8, Udo Hoffmann5, Maros Ferencik9
Author information
1Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
2Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; School of Business Studies, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, Stralsund, Germany.
3Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
4Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Department of Cardiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany.
5Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
6Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
7Duke Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina.
8Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina.
9Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Knight Cardiovascular Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon.
Abstract
Background & aims: Hepatic steatosis has been associated with increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) but it is not clear whether steatosis is independently associated with risk of MACE. We investigated whether steatosis is associated with risk of MACE independently of the presence and extent of baseline coronary artery disease, assessed by comprehensive contrast-enhanced computed tomography angiography (CTA).
Methods: We conducted a nested cohort study of 3756 subjects (mean age, 60.6 years; 48.4% men) who underwent coronary CTA at 193 sites in North America, from July 2010 through September 2013, as part of the PROMISE study, which included noninvasive cardiovascular analyses of symptomatic outpatients without coronary artery disease. Independent core laboratory readers measured hepatic and splenic attenuation, using non-contrast computed tomography images to identify steatosis, and evaluated coronary plaques and stenosis in coronary CTA images. We collected data on participants' cardiovascular risk factors, presence of metabolic syndrome, and body mass index. The primary endpoint was an adjudicated composite of MACE (death, myocardial infarction, or unstable angina) during a median follow-up time of 25 months.
Results: Among the 959 subjects who had steatosis (25.5% of the cohort), 42 had MACE (4.4%), whereas among the 2797 subjects without steatosis, 73 had MACE (2.6%) (hazard ratio [HR] for MACE in subjects with steatosis, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.16-2.48; P = .006 for MACE in subjects with vs without steatosis). This association remained after adjustment for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk scores, significant stenosis, and metabolic syndrome (adjusted HR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.16-2.54; P = .007) or obesity (adjusted HR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.19-2.59; P = .005). Steatosis remained independently associated with MACE after adjustment for all CTA measures of plaques and stenosis.
Conclusions: Hepatic steatosis is associated with MACE independently of other cardiovascular risk factors or extent of coronary artery disease. Strategies to reduce steatosis might reduce risk of MACE. ClinicalTrials.gov no: NCT01174550.