Admission LDL-C and long-term mortality in patients with acute aortic dissection: a survival analysis in China.

BACKGROUND

The level of blood lipid is closely related to prognosis in cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to analyze the effect of serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels on the long-term mortality in acute aortic dissection (AAD). A lower admission LDL-C level is associated with an increased risk of long-term mortality in AAD.

METHODS

We analyzed the data of 284 patients with AAD admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College from February 2016 to September 2019. Patients were followed up post-discharge. All patients were divided into either an LDL-C low-level group or an LDL-C high-level group according to the optimal cut-off point obtained by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The endpoint outcome was long-term mortality in AAD. A survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards model were used.

RESULTS

According to the Youden index, the optimal cut-off point for LDL-C was 2.755 mmol/L. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis curves showed that the long-term mortality of the LDL-C low-level group (<2.755 mmol/L) was significantly higher than that of the LDL-C high-level group (≥2.755 mmol/L) (log-rank χ2=13.912, P<0.001). After multivariate Cox regression analysis, LDL-C <2.755 mmol/L was still significantly associated with long-term mortality in AAD (HR=3.287, 95% CI: 1.637-6.600, P=0.001). In addition, cystatin C was also an independent risk factor for the long-term prognosis of AAD (HR=1.253, 95% CI: 1.057-1.486, P=0.009).

CONCLUSIONS

A lower admission LDL-C level may be associated with an increased risk of long-term mortality in AAD.