Therapeutic Research

Abstract

Background：Sevaral studies suggested that serum EPA/AA ratio could be one of the risk factors of cardiovascular events. However, few study reported that serum EPA/AA ratio could be the indicator of therapy effect of atherosclerosis. Methods：Forty six dyslipidemia patiets with multiple artery atherosclerotic risk factors were treated on EPA（1800 mg/day）added after statin therapy. In addition to serum lipids, high‒sensitive CRP（hs‒CRP）, adiponectin and serum EPA/AA ratio, as a marker of atherosclerosis, carotid intima‒media thickness（IMT）and cardio‒ankle vascular index（CAVI） were measured before and after EPA treatment. Multiple linear regression analysises were performed to assess the association between IMT and other parameters. Results：During the study period of 12 months, maxIMT, CAVI, hs‒CRP and adiponectin showed significant improvement（p＜0.0001, p＜0.0001, p＜0.05, p＜0.01, respectively）. Multiple linear regression analysises revealed that only the increase of EPA/AA ratio associated with improvement of maxIMT（p＝0.0405）. Conclusion：The observasion suggests that EPA can inhibit the development of atherosclerosis and the increase of EPA/AA ratio can be the indicator of therapy effect of atherosclerosis with EPA.