Hepatocyte growth factor as indicator for sublcinical atherosclerosis as measured by 3D-Ultrasound

Background and aims Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a pleiotropic cytokine mainly produced by mesenchymal cells. After endothelial damage by oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL), HGF is produced and released into the circulation in response. Due to this mechanism HGF has been proposed as possible clinical biomarker for clinical as well as subclinical atherosclerosis

Methods The conducted study is an observational, single centre, cohort study, including 171 patients with at least one cardiovascular risk factor or already established cardiovascular disease (CVD). Each patient underwent 3D plaque volumetry of the carotid and femoral arteries as well as physical examination and record of the medical history. Additionally, plasma HGF and further laboratory parameters like high sensititvity C-reactive protein and LDL-cholesterol were determined.

Results 169 patients were available for statistical analysis. In bivariate correlation, HGF showed a high significant correlation with total plaque volume (TPV, r=0.48; p<0.001). In receiver operating characteristic analysis for high TPV, HGF showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.72 (CI 95%: 0.63-0.81, p<0.001). The ESC-SCORE showed an AUC of 0.71 (CI 95%: 0.6-0.8; p<0.001). The combination of HGF with ESC-SCORE showed the highest predictive performance (AUC 0.75; CI 95%: 0.65-0.84; p<0.001)

Conclusion Higher serum levels of HGF are associated with higher atherosclerotic plaque volume as measured by 3D-ultrasound. The inclusion of HGF into current risk stratification systems like the ESC-SCORE-chart can improve the predictive performance of these scoring systems. 3D ultrasound is a promising surrogate parameter for the measurement of subclinical atherosclerosis

Publication History

Article published online:
29 August 2023