Endostatin and osteopontin are elevated in patients with both coronary artery disease and aortic valve calcification

Background: The angiostatic factor endostatin (ES) plays an important role as mediator of angiogenesis. Elevated osteopontin (OPN) was associated with valve calcification in healthy individuals. The present study aimed to investigate ES and OPN levels in patients with both coronary artery disease (CAD) and aortic valve calcification (AVC). Methods and results: In total 224 non-or ex-smoking patients (161 male, mean age: 61.09 +/- 11.02 years; 63 female: mean age: 67.49 +/- 7.87 years) with angiographically verified and quantified CADwere recruited. SerumES and plasma OPN levels were measured by ELISA and AVC was evaluated by a parasternal short axis view and quantified as non-, mild or moderate/severe. There was a stepwise increase of ES measurable with increasing severity of AVC, independent from age, BMI and CAD-severity (p=0.018; F=4.09). OPN also increased significantlywith the grade of AVC severity (p=0.029; F=3.61) butwas no longer significantwhen the co-variables (p=0.31; F=1.18) were inserted. Conclusions: This is the first study showing an association of ES with AVC in CAD-patients independent fromage, BMI and CAD-severity which seems to be of distinct interestwhen trying to understand the process of heart valve calcification. OPN also correlates with AVC-severity but is mostly dependent on the age of the patients. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).