Do spinal cord injuries adversely affect serum lipoprotein profiles?

OBJECTIVES

Previous reports indicate that dyslipidemia is very common in persons with spinal cord injury. This study aimed to examine the relationship between spinal cord injury and serum lipoprotein profiles.

METHODS

We assessed 28 healthy control subjects matched for age and sex and 60 persons (46 men and 14 women; mean age, 28.1 years) with spinal cord injury having a mean duration of injury of 3.6 +/- 0.8 years (range, 1-13 years).

RESULTS

Serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level was higher (109 +/- 37, 91 +/- 23.7 mg/dL, respectively) (p = 0.04) and serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level was lower (33 +/- 7.1, 44 +/- 7.4 mg/dL, respectively) (p < 0.001) in the patients with spinal cord injury than in the control. Apolipoprotein A-I level was significantly low (94 +/- 10.3, 103 +/- 11.5 mg/dl) (p = 0.003) and apolipoprotein B level was significantly high (93 +/- 15.6, 81 +/- 13.7mg/dL) (p = 0.004) in the group of spinal cord injury. No significant difference was observed the other parameters of these two groups.

CONCLUSION

Our results have shown that serum lipoprotein level should not be ignored for the follow-up of the patients with spinal cord injury.