PIA1/A2 polymorphism of the platelet glycoprotein receptor IIb/IIIIa and its correlation with myocardial infarction: an appraisal.

Platelet glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa is a membrane receptor for fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor. There is considerable controversy regarding the clinical role of the GPIIb/IIIa PIA1/A2 as a risk factor for myocardial infarction. A summative analysis is performed on the recent previous reports on the GPIIb/IIIa PIA1/A2 and its correlation to myocardial infarction. The metanalysis was performed to assess the correlation between the pattern of GPIIb/IIIa PIA1/A2 polymorphism and myocardial infarction. From 7 available case-control reports, 553 patients and 1,059 controls are evaluated. The overall frequencies of PIA2 allele for the patients and controls are 0.249 and 0.221, respectively. According to this study, 49.4% of subjects with PIA2 allele have myocardial infarction while 39.5% of subjects without PIA2 allele have cerebrovascular disease. From overall risk estimation, the subjects with PIA2 alleles have a 1.1 times higher risk to have myocardial infarction. According to this analysis, it is proposed that the pattern of GPIIb/IIIa PIA1/A2 polymorphism does not represent a useful marker of increased risk for myocardial infarction. In addition, the lack of association between the pattern of GPIIb/IIIa PIA1/A2 polymorphism and ethnicity of the patients was demonstrated in this study.