Interleukin-18 and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in European Men

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Abstract
Background— Interleukin (IL)-18 promotes atherosclerotic plaque growth and vulnerability. It is unknown, however, whether elevations of circulating IL-18 precede the onset of coronary events in apparently healthy individuals. Methods and Results— We evaluated the relationship between baseline plasma levels of IL-18 and the subsequent incidence of coronary events over a 5-year follow-up in the Prospective Epidemiological Study of Myocardial Infarction (PRIME),which included 10 600 healthy European men aged 50 to 59 years at baseline. Analysis was performed in a nested case-control manner comparing 335 cases with a coronary event to 670 age-matched controls. Baseline levels of IL-18 were significantly higher in men who developed a coronary event than in controls (225.1 versus 203.9 pg/mL, P=0.005). After adjustment for most potential confounders, including C-reactive protein, IL-6, and fibrinogen, the relative risk of future coronary events associated with increasing tertiles of IL-18 was 1.65 (95% CI 1.14 ...