Circulating Angiopoietins-1 and -2, Angiopoietin Receptor Tie-2 and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-A as Biomarkers of Acute Myocardial Infarction: a Prospective Nested Case-Control Study

Abstract Background Angiogenesis is up-regulated in myocardial ischemia. However, limited data exist assessing the value of circulating angiogenic biomarkers in predicting future incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Our aim was to examine the association between circulating levels of markers of angiogenesis with risk of incident acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in men and women. Methods We performed a case-control study (nested within a large cohort of persons receiving care within Kaiser Permanente of Northern California) including 695 AMI cases and 690 controls individually matched on age, gender and race/ethnicity. Results Median [inter-quartile range] serum concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A; 260 [252] vs. 235 [224] pg/mL; p = 0.01) and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2; 1.18 [0.66] vs. 1.05 [0.58] ng/mL; p Conclusions Our data support a role of Ang-2 as a biomarker of incident AMI independent of traditional risk factors.