Place and role of von Willebrand factor in acute coronary syndromes

Introduction. Advanced understanding of the pathophysiology of ACS has led to the marked increase in development of biomarkers for diagnosis, risk stratification, therapeutic decision-making, and assessment of clinical outcomes, but there is still a need for a marker that could verify or exclude the existence of acute coronary syndrome as early as possible. The aim of our study was to assess the value of von Willebrand factor as a potential marker of heart necrosis in early diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome. Material and methods. One hundred fifteen patients were taken a blood sample on the first day after being diagnosed to have an acute coronary syndrome in order to determine the values of their von Willebrand factor antigen and von Willebrand factor activity. Results and discussion. The results of the study clearly showed that patients had significantly elevated both these parameters compared to the reference values and controls, and that von Willebrand factor represented a highly sensitive and specific marker which correlated with the degree of necrosis and clinical picture. Conclusion. These results should be confirmed by further multi-center investigations performed on a higher number of participants.