title: The clinical significance of anticardiolipin antibody levels in patients with acute myocardial infarction: a regional study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) will probably remain the most important cause of death over the next decades. Traditional risk factors of atherosclerosis could not exactly explain the development of acute coronary events such as AMI. Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome is a disorder characterized by the development of arterial and venous thrombosis.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In this study, we investigated the relations between acute myocardial infarction and anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome in our population representing Aegean Region people characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred patients with acute myocardial infarction were consecutively included in the study (group I) and one hundred age and sex matched people with similar risk factors were enrolled in the study as a control group (group II). Anticardiolipin antibody (aCL) IgM and IgG levels were measured in the two groups. Levels of aCL IgG ≥ 48 U/ml and/or aCL IgM ≥ 44 U/ml were accepted as positive and significant.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In patients with acute myocardial infarction, 5 patients (5%) had positive IgM levels and 8 patients (8%) were found to have positive IgG levels. All cases in the control group had negative aCL IgM and IgG antibody levels. These results were accepted as significant for both aCL antibodies between patients and controls (p < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We concluded that aCL antibody levels are also higher in a small proportion of patients with acute myocardial infarction than controls in our region, also, and these results suggest that there may be an immune stimulus in the pathogenesis of acute coronary events.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Medicine Faculty, Dicle University, Diyarbakır, Turkey.
authors.forename: Faruk
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ertaș
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Tepecik Education and Research Hospital, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Oznur
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Can
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Medicine Faculty, Dicle University, Diyarbakır, Turkey.
authors.forename: Halit
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Acet
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Tepecik Education and Research Hospital, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Mert
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ozbakkaloglu
keywords: acute coronary syndrome; anticardiolipin antibodies; antiphospholipid syndrome; thrombosis