Abstract

Background: Among the non-classic cardiovascular disease risk factors inend-stage renal disease patients on chronic hemodialysis (HD), plasma fibrinogen, D-dimer, and von Willebrandfactor (vWf) levels are potential markers of cardiovascular morbidity. We designed this case-controlstudy to investigate their validity and any differences between them. Material/Methods: Twenty-five HDpatients (18 males, mean age: 63, range: 52-69 years) comprised the group with prevalent cardiovasculardisease (CVD) and 50 HD patients (35 males, mean age: 62, range: 40-77 years) with non-evident cardiovasculardisease history constituted the second study group. Twenty-five healthy non-smoking volunteers servedas controls for comparison with the study groups. Results: Patients with CVD had significantly higherconcentrations of plasma fibrinogen, D-dimer, and vWf than patients without incident CVD. All three parameterscorrelated positively with cardiovascular morbidity, i.e. fibrinogen (r=0.378, P0.001), logDD (r=0.70,P

Keywords: Cardiovascular Diseases - etiology, Biological Markers - blood, Case-Control Studies, Fibrin Fibrinogen Degradation Products - metabolism, Fibrinogen - metabolism, Kidney Failure, Chronic - therapy, Odds Ratio, Renal Dialysis, Reproducibility of Results, von Willebrand Factor - metabolism