Serum lipoprotein (a) levels in patients with arterial hypertension.

Lp(a) is capable of deleteriously altering the balance between the procoagulantand anticoagulant, proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory, and vasorelaxing and vasoconstrictingproperties of the endothelium. Material and method: The purpose of this study was toinvestigate the serum concentration of Lp(a) and the main parameters of lipid profile in threegroups of subjects: a control group that included 16 healthy subjects, 20 patients with arterialhypertension and dyslipidemia and 20 patients with arterial hypertension without dyslipidemia.Using B-mode ultrasonography, we evaluated carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and flowmediated vasodilation (FMD) on brachial artery. Results: We found significant higher Lp(a)concentrations in hypertensive patients with dislipidemia (70±55.95 mg/dL, p<0.001) and inhypertensive patients without dislipidemia (69±52.33 mg/dL, p<0.001), comparative with thecontrol group (19±14.64 mg/dL). In hypertensive patients with dislipidemia we found astrong negative correlation between Lp(a) and carotid IMT (R2 = -0.75, p<0.001) and amoderate negative correlation between Lp(a) and FMD (R2 = - 0.38, p<0.001). Lp(a) levelwasn‘t correlated with the main parameters of lipid profile. Conclusions: These resultsindicated that serum Lp(a) values could play an important role in essential hypertensionpathogenesis and could be considered as an individual risk factor in hypertensive patients.