Can YKL-40 be a new inflammatory biomarker in cardiovascular disease?

Coronary artery disease is the most common background of death in western countries. Medical therapies and revisualization by percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary by-pass surgery have reduced the mortality significantly. However, many of the treated patients still have angina or heart failure symptoms, many hospitalisations and a poor prognosis. Therefore, there is need for identifying new biomarkers, which alone or in combination with other risk markers are useful in monitoring treatment and as prognostic markers for future cardiovascular events in patients with ischemic heart disease. The inflammatory biomarker YKL-40 has recently been found elevated in patients with both acute and stable chronic cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, YKL-40 could potentially be a new useful biomarker of disease severity, prognosis and survival in patients with ischemic heart disease. The review will present published information about YKL40 in cardiac patients and discuss whether YKL-40 could be used for monitoring the therapies and for prognostic evaluations in patients with cardiovascular disease. (C) 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.