Aging is associated with a chronic low-grade inflammatory state. This condition may affect the acute inflammatory response involved in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) or acute ischemic stroke (AIS). We sought to compare the profile of a set of circulating inflammatory markers between young and older patients admitted for AIS or STEMI.
HIBISCUS-STROKE and HIBISCUS-STEMI cohorts included AIS patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy and STEMI patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention, respectively. Age cut-off was 65 years. In both cohorts, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor I (sTNF-RI), soluble form suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2) and vascular cellular adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) were measured on serum collected at 5 time-points using ELISA. A multiple logistic regression model was performed to detect an association between area under the curve (AUC) of circulating inflammatory markers within the first 48 hours and older age.
A total of 164 AIS and 260 STEMI patients were included. Of them, there were 105 (64%) and 76 (30%) older AIS and STEMI patients, respectively. Following multivariate analysis, a high AUC of IL-6 and sTNF-RI, a low lymphocyte count and a high neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) at 24 hours were associated with older age in AIS and STEMI patients.
Older patients had higher IL-6 and sTFN-RI levels within the first 48 hours associated with a low lymphocyte count and a high NLR at 24 hours in both cohorts.