Moris D N, Georgopoulos S E
First Department of Surgery, Vascular Unit, Laiko General Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Int Angiol. 2013 Jun;32(3):266-80.
Abdominal aorta aneurysm (AAA) is a serious threat for human life, especially in such cases when it is asymptomatic until aneurysm rupture, which is a general cause of death in AAA subjects. We aim to give a conceptual description of the potential biomarkers that can correlate and predict the natural history of an AAA.
The MEDLINE/PubMed database was searched for publications with the medical subject heading "abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA)" and the keyword "biomarkers". We restricted our search to English till January 2012. We focused on human studies that reported aneurysm size, expansion rates and/or rupture and the studied biomarkers.
In this review we included 94 articles (4 reviews) that were accessible and available in English. We excluded articles referred exclusively to thoracic aneurysms and cardiac studies.
There are no specific laboratory markers that would allow one to distinguish in a simple way between aneurysm bearers and the healthy population. Serum elastase peptides seem still to be sufficient biomarkers to predict expansion and rupture, but advanced techniques (ELISA) and larger studies are needed to establish its exact role. Plasmin-antiplasmin complexes (PAP) may also have clinical potential. Newer biomarkers may also have a role, not well established yet. Beyond that, there are many limitations related to the fact that many biomarkers related with AAA outcome are not disease specific, due to their established correlation with atherosclerosis. Future research is required to establish the underlying relations between these biomarkers and their role in AAA pathophysiology.
腹主动脉瘤（AAA）对人类生命构成严重威胁，尤其是在动脉瘤破裂前无症状的情况下，这是AAA患者死亡的常见原因。我们旨在对能够关联并预测AAA自然病程的潜在生物标志物进行概念性描述。
在MEDLINE/PubMed数据库中搜索医学主题词为“腹主动脉瘤（AAA）”且关键词为“生物标志物”的出版物。截至2012年1月，我们将搜索范围限定为英文文献。我们重点关注报告了动脉瘤大小、扩张率和/或破裂情况以及所研究生物标志物的人体研究。
在本综述中，我们纳入了94篇（4篇综述）可获取且为英文的文章。我们排除了仅涉及胸主动脉瘤和心脏研究的文章。
目前尚无特定的实验室标志物能够简单地区分动脉瘤患者与健康人群。血清弹性蛋白酶肽似乎仍是预测扩张和破裂的充分生物标志物，但需要先进技术（酶联免疫吸附测定法）和更大规模的研究来确定其确切作用。纤溶酶 - 抗纤溶酶复合物（PAP）也可能具有临床应用潜力。新型生物标志物可能也发挥作用，但尚未得到充分证实。除此之外，由于许多与AAA预后相关的生物标志物与动脉粥样硬化存在既定关联，并非疾病特异性，因此存在诸多局限性。未来需要开展研究以确定这些生物标志物之间的潜在关系及其在AAA病理生理学中的作用。
