Objective: To investigates the role of chlamydia pneumoniae (CP) infection in the development of coronary artery disease (CAD) in the patients with dyslipidemia, and to examine the gender related differences in this role.
Methods: 523 inpatients with dyslipidemia and 1196 inpatients without dyslipidemia tested for specific CP IgG by enzyme-linked immunoassay. Multivariate analyses were performed in the patients with and without dyslipidemia, and in the subgroups of male and female dyslipidemic patients to get the adjusted odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence intervals) of CAD for a given risk factor.
Results: After adjusting for age over 55 years, male sex, smoking, hypertension and diabetes, the OR of CAD associated with CP infection was 2.5 (1.4 to 4.6, P = 0.002) in the patients with dyslipidemia, and was 0.967 (0.7 - 1.4, P = 0.851) in those without dyslipidemia. In comparison with the male patients with dyslipidemia, the adjusted OR of CAD was 2.1 (1.1 to 4.1) for CP infection and 3.3 (1.9 - 5.9) for smoking; only CP infection was significantly contributed to CAD in female dylipidemic patients, with an adjusted OR of 4.4 (1.4 to 14.6).
Conclusion: CP infection increases the risk of CAD only in patients with dyslipidemia, and this increase was greater in women than in men.