The Chromosome 9p21 Variant Not Predicting Long-Term Cardiovascular Mortality in Chinese with Established Coronary Artery Disease: An Eleven-Year Follow-Up Study

INTRODUCTION: We examined whether the variant at chromosome 9p21, rs4977574, was associated with long-term cardiovascular mortality in Han Chinese patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODOLOGY: Subjects who underwent coronary angiography for chest pain were consecutively enrolled. Fasting blood samples were collected for laboratory and genotype assessments. The information was correlated with data collected from the national death database. RESULTS: There were 925 cases with CAD and 634 without CAD enrolled in the present study. The G allele conferred a significant increase in risk of CAD (odds ratio = 1.47, P = 0.003 in the dominant model; odds ratio = 1.36, P = 0.018 in the recessive model). During a median of 11 years (inter-quartile range between 5.2 and 12.5 years) of follow-up, neither the total nor the cardiovascular mortality was different among CAD subjects with different genotypes. Using Cox regression analysis, genotypes of rs4977574 still failed to predict cardiovascular mortality (hazard ratio = 1.25, P = 0.138 in the dominant model; hazard ratio = 1.05, P = 0.729 in the recessive model). CONCLUSIONS: The rs4977574 at chromosome 9p21 is associated with presence of CAD in Han Chinese. However, rs4977574 could not predict cardiovascular mortality in these CAD subjects during the eleven-year period of the study.