Circulating Biomarkers May Predict Who Will Have a Stroke

People with high levels of four biomarkers in the blood may be more likely to develop an ischemic stroke (IIS) than people with low levels of the biomarkers.

Adding these four biomarkers to an existing method of predicting a person's stroke risk based on factors such as age, sex, cholesterol and blood pressure, called the Framingham Stroke Risk Profile, improved the ability to predict who would develop a stroke.

A team of scientists led by those at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON, Canada) measured the levels of 15 biomarkers associated with inflammation in the blood of people from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort who had never had a stroke. The 3,224 participants had a mean age of 61 ± 9, with 54% of them female, at the start of the study and were followed for an average of nine year and during that time, and 98 people had a stroke.

Of the 15 biomarkers, four were associated with an increased risk of stroke. People with elevated homocysteine (tHcy) were 32% more likely to have a stroke. Those with high vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were 25% more likely; those with high C-reactive protein (CRP) were 28% more likely; and those with high ln-tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2) were 33% more likely to have a stroke during the study.

Ashkan Shoamanesh, MD, the lead author of the study, said, “"Identifying people who are at risk for stroke can help us determine who would benefit most from existing or new therapies to prevent stroke. The study shows a relationship between high levels of the biomarkers and stroke; it does not establish that the high levels cause stroke.” He also noted that the biomarkers were measured only once and the investigators did not account for infections, chronic diseases or other conditions that could have affected the results. The study was published on August 24, 2016, in the journal Neurology.

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