Association of lipoprotein (a) with coronary artery disease in a South Asian population: A case-control study

Coronary artery disease (CAD), the leading cause of mortality worldwide, is characterised by an earlier onset and more severe disease in South Asians as compared to Western populations. This is an observational study on 928 individuals who attended three tertiary care centres in Kerala, India from 2014-to 2017. The demographic, anthropometric, behavioural factors and the lipoprotein (Lp(a)) and cholesterol values were compared between the two groups and across disease severity. The Chi-square test was used to compare the categorical variables and independent sample t-test for the continuous variables. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to investigate the association of demographic, clinical and behavioural factors with the disease. Odds ratios are presented with a 95% confidence interval. In individuals below 50 years, two logistic regression models were compared to investigate the improvement in modelling the association of the independent factors and Lp(a) with the occurrence of the disease. We included 682 patients in the diseased group and 246 patients treated for non-coronary conditions in the control group. Those in the control group were significantly younger than in the diseased group(p