Association between platelet glycoprotein Ib alpha genotype and ischemic cerebrovascular disease

Background and Purpose-Platelets play pivotal roles in the development of i schemic cerebrovascular disease (CVD), The platelet glycoprotein (GP) Ib/IX /V complex is a receptor for von Willebrand factor, which plays a major rol e in the initial phase of platelet activation under high shear stress condi tions. This study was designed to investigate the association between a gen etic variation of this receptor and the prevalence of CVD, Methods-Two hundred patients with ischemic CVD, as confirmed by brain CT an d/or MRI, and 317 age- and sex-matched control subjects without clinical ev idence of CVD or cardiovascular disease were analyzed for their genotype fr equencies of the (145)Thr/Met dimorphism of the a-chain of GPIb (GPIb alpha ), Results-Genotypes with (145)Met (T/M and M/M) were more frequently found in the CVD patients (26.5%) than in control subjects (14.2%, P=0.0005). The g enotype effect was more obvious in those <60 years of age or without acquir ed cardiovascular risk factors. The odds ratio for nonsmoking women <60 yea rs of age was 10.6 (95% confidence intervals, 2.2 to 51.7). Although the nu mber of patients studied was small (n=24), transient ischemic attack showed the highest odds ratio (4.3, P=0.0004), followed by lacunar infarction (OR =2.2, P=0.0024) and atherothrombotic infarction (OR= 1.5, P=0.3143), Logist ic regression analysis revealed that the presence of Met-allele was indepen dently associated with CVD, Conclusions-Our study suggests that the platelet GPIba genotype is a geneti c risk factor for ischemic CVD.