Abstract Background Chronic inflammatory conditions of the lower and upper airways have been associated with coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the association with aortic valve calcification (AVC), a condition sharing pathophysiological mechanisms and risk factors with CAD, remains unexplored. Purpose We aimed to examine the association between chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma+COPD with AVC. Methods Participants from the Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study (SCAPIS), a cross-sectional cohort of 30,154 randomly selected individuals aged 50-64 years in Sweden, were included. Individuals with CRS, asthma, COPD and asthma+COPD were compared to those without these conditions. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to estimate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the presence of AVC, as determined by computed tomography (CT), adjusting for relevant confounders. Results AVC was more prevalent in individuals with asthma (8.5%), COPD (11.1%) and asthma+COPD (14.2%), but not in those with CRS (6.4%), compared to the reference groups (7.0-7.2%). Asthma and asthma+COPD were significantly associated with AVC (adjusted OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.05-1.60 and 1.83, 95% CI 1.27-2.64, respectively). While no significant associations were observed between mild or moderate COPD and AVC, severe and very severe COPD showed a strong association (adjusted OR 6.29, 95% CI 2.97-13.34). No significant association was observed between CRS and AVC (adjusted OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.67-1.03). Conclusions The study provides the first evidence of an association between asthma, asthma+COPD and severe and very severe COPD with AVC, while CRS showed no association.Forest Plot
Gottlieb-Vedi et al. (Sat,) studied this question.