The association of endothelial injury and systemic inflammation with perioperative myocardial infarction

Background Major surgery predisposes to endothelial glycocalyx injury. Endothelial glycocalyx injury associates with cardiac morbidity, including spontaneous myocardial infarction. However, the relation between endothelial glycocalyx injury and the development of perioperative myocardial infarction remains unknown. Methods Fifteen perioperative myocardial infarction patients and 60 propensity-matched controls were investigated in this prospective study. The diagnosis of perioperative myocardial infarction was based on repeated cardiac troponin T measurements, electrocardiographs and recordings of ischaemic signs and symptoms. We measured endothelial glycocalyx markers – soluble thrombomodulin, syndecan-1 and vascular adhesion protein 1 – and an inflammatory marker, namely interleukin-6, preoperatively and 6 h and 24 h postoperatively. We calculated the areas under the receiver operating characteristics curves (AUCs) to compare the performances of the different markers in predicting perioperative myocardial infarction. The highest value of each marker was used in the analysis. Results The interleukin-6 concentrations of perioperative myocardial infarction patients were significantly higher preoperatively and 6 and 24 h postoperatively ( P = 0.002, P = 0.002 and P = 0.001, respectively). The AUCs (95% confidence intervals) for the detection of perioperative myocardial infarction were 0.51 (0.34–0.69) for soluble thrombomodulin, 0.63 (0.47–0.79) for syndecan-1, 0.54 (0.37–0.70) for vascular adhesion protein 1 and 0.69 (0.54–0.85) for interleukin-6. Conclusions Systemic inflammation, reflected by interleukin-6, associates with cardiac troponin T release and perioperative myocardial infarction. Circulating interleukin-6 demonstrated some potential to predict perioperative myocardial infarction, whereas endothelial glycocalyx markers did not.