Levels of serum Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT), high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP) in Myocardial Infarction (MI)-A case control study

Objectives: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a major public health problem among non-communicable diseases in developing countries. Inflammation plays very important role in AMI. Gamma Glutamyl Transfersae (GGT) has been used for years as an index of hepatic dysfunction, hepatobiliary system and marker of alcohol consumption. Recently studies demonstrated that increase in GGT activity can be used as oxidative stress marker and is involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. Inflammatory marker i.e. high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) is an acute phase protein, useful marker in AMI. Hence the present study was undertaken to estimate serum gamma glutamyl transferase activity, hsCRP levels in myocardial infarction (MI) patients and to compare with healthy controls and also to correlate between GGT, hsCRP with CK-MB levels. Materials and Method: The study comprises of 100 subjects between age group of 30 to 70 years, 50 were diagnosed cases of myocardial infarction and 50 were healthy controls. Under aseptic precaution 5 mL of venous blood was drawn within six hours of admission and collected in plain vacutainer. Serum was separated and used for estimation of gamma-glutamyl transeferase, hsCRP, urea and creatinine. Results: Results were expressed as mean±SD. Student ‘t' test and Pearson correlation was applied. There was significant increase (p 0.001) in serum GGT activity, hsCRP and urea levels in MI patients compared to controls. There was also significant positive correlation between serum GGT, hsCRP and urea with CK-MB levels. Conclusion: Our study concludes that GGT and hsCRP can be used as assisted biochemical marker in AMI patients along with other cardiac markers, which is simple and cost effective parameter in MI patients.