Association between incidence of lipoprotein(a) positivity and coronary heart disease.

Serum samples from 167 (109 male, 58 female) hospital based staff as controls and 760 (596 male and 164 female) clinically documented patients of coronary heart disease (CHD) were subjected to 3.75% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for lipoprotein profile and the presence of lipoprotein(a) [LP(a)], which is reported to be an independent risk factor for CHD. Serum total cholesterol, triglyceride and ratio of the electrophoretically separated LDL/HDL lipoprotein fractions were also evaluated. The significant observations are (i) a large proportion of both male and female CHD patients showed the presence of LP(a) as compared to controls, (ii) The incidence of LP(a) positivity was found to be independent of sex and age in controls. Female patients however showed marginal increase (p < 0.05) with age. Male patients of < 40 years demonstrated three times higher incidence of LP(a) presence as compared to their female counterparts, (iii) Comparison of LP(a)+ and LP(a)- patients for serum lipid levels did not show any significant difference. It is inferred that LP(a) positivity may be independent of these lipid variables.