Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is an important cardiovascular risk factor especially in young individuals. The power of Lp(a) to predict cardiovascular events in young coronary artery disease (CAD) patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) however is unclear and is addressed in the present study. Lp(a) was measured in a cohort of 731 patients with angiographically proven CAD who were aged <65 years. Vascular events were recorded over a mean follow-up of 6.6±3.2 years. At baseline, 216 patients had T2DM, and 515 did not have diabetes. During follow-up, 30.2% of our patients suffered cardiovascular events. Lp(a) proved to be a strong and independent predictor of vascular events in the total study cohort (standardized adjusted HR=1.30 [1.07-1.56]; p=0.007). In subgroup analyses by diabetes status, Lp(a) significantly predicted vascular events in nondiabetic patients (standardized adjusted HR= 1.39 [1.12-1.74]; p=0.003) but not in diabetic patients (standardized adjusted HR=0.93 [0.63-1.38]; p=0.731). An interaction term Lp(a)xT2DM was significant (p=0.002), indicating that T2DM significantly modulated the power of Lp(a) to predict cardiovascular events. We conclude that Lp(a) significantly modulates the power of Lp(a) to predict cardiovascular events in CAD patients <65 years.

Disclosure

A. Mader: None. C. H. Saely: None. M. Maechler: None. B. Larcher: None. L. Sprenger: None. B. Mutschlechner: None. A. Leiherer: None. A. Muendlein: None. A. Vonbank: None. H. Drexel: None.

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