Abstract
Arterial and venous thrombosis have always been regarded as different pathologies and epidemiological studies have examined the association between venous thrombosis and indicators of atherosclerosis and/or arterial thromboembolic events. We measured the flow-mediated dilation (FMD), a well-known marker of arterial endothelial dysfunction, in young–middle-aged and old-aged patients with and without unprovoked deep venous thrombosis (DVT). The aim of this study was to investigate whether DVT was a significant predictor for impaired FMD, considering all the patients and young–middle-aged (age < 65 years) and old-aged (age ≥ 65 years) patients separately. FMD was measured in the brachial artery on a population of 120 subjects with the same atherosclerosis risk factors, 68 male and 52 female, 70 young–middle-aged subjects (mean age ± SD 49.5 ± 10.5 years) and 50 old-aged subjects (76.2 ± 7.7 years). Patients with DVT showed a significant decrease of FMD compared to patients without DVT (6.8 ± 5.5% vs. 10.9 ± 3.5%, p < 0.001). Moreover, old-aged patients showed a significant decrease of FMD compared to the young–middle-aged subjects (7.4 ± 4.1% vs. 9.8 ± 5.3%, p = 0.005). In the whole study population, DVT was strongly associated with FMD (risk factors adjusted β = −4.14, p < 0.001). A significant interaction between age and the presence of DVT on predicting FMD was found (p = 0.003) suggesting a differential behavior of DVT as predictor of FMD. In young–middle-aged group, multivariate model confirmed that DVT was the most significant predictor of continuous FMD (β = −6.06, p < 0.001). On the contrary, DVT was no more a predictor of FMD in the old age group (β = −0.73, p=0.556). Furthermore, old-aged patients without DVT showed a statistically significant decrease of FMD compared to the young–middle-aged subjects without DVT (8.2±2.1% vs. 12.6±2.7%, p<0.001) and old-aged patients with DVT showed a not statistically significant decrease of the FMD compared to the young–middle-aged patients with DVT (6.7±5.3% vs. 6.8±5.7%, p = 0.932). In conclusion, young–middle-aged patients with spontaneous DVT show an impaired FMD, whereas this impairment in old-aged subjects is evident independently from the presence or absence of DVT. Aging per se may be associated with physiologic abnormalities in the systemic arteries and with endothelial dysfunction.
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Mazzoccoli, G., Fontana, A., Grilli, M. et al. Idiopathic deep venous thrombosis and arterial endothelial dysfunction in the elderly. AGE 34, 751–760 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-011-9265-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-011-9265-x