Serum Biomarkers and Classification and Regression Trees Can Discriminate Symptomatic from Asymptomatic Carotid Artery Disease Patients

To assess biomarkers between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, and to construct a classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm for their discrimination. 136 patients were enrolled. They were symptomatic (high risk) (N = 82, stenosis degree ≥ 50%, proven to be responsible for ischemic stroke the last six months) and asymptomatic (low risk) (N = 54, stenosis degree ≤ 50%). Levels of fibrinogen, matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (SiCAM), soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule (SvCAM), adiponectin and insulin were measured on a Luminex 3D platform and their differences were evaluated; subsequently, a CART model was created and evaluated. All measured biomarkers, except adiponectin, had significantly higher levels in symptomatic patients. The constructed CART prognostic model had 97.6% discrimination accuracy on symptomatic patients and 79.6% on asymptomatic, while the overall accuracy was 90.4%. Moreover, the population was split into training and test sets for CART validation. Significant differences were found in the biomarkers between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. The CART model proved to be a simple decision-making algorithm linked with risk probabilities and provided evidence to identify and, therefore, treat patients being at high risk for cardiovascular disease.