Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Biomarkers

Emory University
posted on 01/16/2012

Applications

This technology can be used as a diagnostic test identifying of the severity of coronary artery disease and a prognostic test for the occurrence of adverse conditions in CAD patients.

Key Benefits

Blood based biomarker screening can be used to assess the CAD burden.
Biomarker levels provide prognostic indication for the occurrence of adverse conditions in CAD patients.

Market Summary

7 M people are estimated to have coronary artery disease in the US with 1.2M new or recurrent coronary attacks occurring each year. More than 500K individuals die each year in the US from heart disease (2000 AHA data). Currently, there is no single test that can identify CAD burden from peripheral blood samples. Patients may typically undergo one or more of the following exams to identify and quantitate the CAD burden in patients; exercise stress test, stress echocardiography, CT scan and/or coronary angiography.

The inventors see this product becoming a clinically relevant diagnostic in medical practice as is the current inflammatory marker CRP.

Technical Summary

Cell surface glycoprotein biomarkers were examined using flow cytometry in 466 patients with varying degrees of CAD to estimate biomarker levels in peripheral blood samples. CAD severity was ranked using the following criteria: 1) Gensini score, 2) identification of CAD in >50% epicardial vessels using angiography and 3) the number of epicardial vessels with >50% CAD.

The inventors have shown that the identified biomarkers present in the blood: 1) are lower in CAD patients, 2) inversely correlate with atherosclerosis severity, and 3) are predictive of future adverse events.