[Lipoprotein(a) and Apo-A isoforms in patients with intermittent claudication]

To study a correlation between lipoprotein(a) [LP(a)], as well as the phenotype of apoprotein(a) [apo(a)] and the presence of intermittent claudication (IC).The study included 25 patients (9 females, 16 males; mean age, 63.4 +/- 8.2 years) and 50 individuals (21 females, 29 males; mean age, 61.3 +/- 6.1 years) of a control group.In the patients, the level of LP(a) was 3 times higher than in the controls (median 39 and 13 mg/dl, respectively; p0.01). The low molecular-weight phenotypes of apo(a) occurred significantly more frequently in the patients than those in the controls (62 and 28%, respectively; p = 0.02).Multifactorial analysis has shown that the level of Lp(a) is an independent and important factor associated with the presence of IC.