Serum Adenosine Deaminase Activity in Myocardial Infarction

The presence of immunological component in the progression of atherosclerotic lesions of coronary heart disease has been suggested in the earlier studies. The present study is one such attempt to estimate the level of adenosine deaminase (ADA) activity, an accepted non-specific marker of T lymphocyte activation in patients with Myocardial Infarction(MI) and establish it as a marker of cell mediated immunity in these patients. 50 cases presenting MI and 50 age and sex matched healthy controls were included in the study. Serum ADA activity was measured spectrophotometrically at 630nm. The mean ADA levels were 44.07±12.46 in patients and 20.71±5.63 in controls. The difference in the values between the two groups was found to be highly significant (p. 0.01). The observations of the present study provide evidence for T lymphocyte activation and proliferation in MI patients and suggest ADA as one of the marker to elucidate the pathogenesis of MI.