Serological Evidence of an Association of a Novel Chlamydia, Twar, With Chronic Coronary Heart Disease and Acute Myocardial Infarction

Dual role of infections as risk factors for coronary heart disease

“…Actually there was a trend of the titers being higher in those with earlier infarction which is in contrast to the study of Reunanen et al [5]. The risk for coronary event was associated with high EV, HV and C. pneumoniae pneumoniae bacteria have been considered as the main vascular pathogens increasing the risk for CHD [10]. Also in our study C. pneumoniae HSP60 IgG antibody titers were elevated.…”

Increased prevalence of Chlamydophila pneumoniae but not Epstein–Barr antibodies in essential hypertensives

“…Additionally, the lack of the performance standardizations and the variety of the cutoff titres have made the comparison of data from different laboratories quite difficult. We considered as positive, a higher threshold (X40) than other studies (X8 and X16), 29,4,30 in order to minimize the percentage of false-positive results. IgG antibody titres X512 were excluded from our study, as evidence of acute C. pneumoniae infection or reinfection.…”

“…22 The relative sensitivity and specificity of the above serologic tests when compared with the reference tests are as follows: for EBV IgM ELISA test 97. 4 The C. pneumoniae MIF IgG assay sensitivity is 65% (by sera) and the specificity is 96%. The C. pneumoniae MIF IgA assay sensitivity is 72% (by sera) and the specificity is 94%.…”

“…It can cause acute and chronic pulmonary infections such as pneumonia, bronchitis, sinusitis and pharyngitis in both adults and children. 1 Several studies have documented an association between serologic evidence of C. pneumoniae infection and various forms of vascular disease, such as coronary heart disease, [2][3][4] carotid atherosclerotic lesions 5,6 and ischaemic cerebrovascular disease. 7 However, a number of studies have failed to establish such an association.…”

Aspects infectieux de l’athérosclérose

“…Il est donc possible de rechercher des associations entre la signature sérolo-gique d'une infection microbienne et l'existence (études cas-témoins) ou la survenue (études prospectives de cohorte) d'une maladie coronaire. Cette méthode a mené à impliquer C. pneumoniae [4] ou H. pylori [6]. Toutefois, l'épidémiologie établit des associations statistiques où le lien de causalité n'est jamais qu'une interprétation parmi d'autres [1].…”