Background: Eosinophils are pro-inflammatory cells involved in thrombosis and have been proposed as a prognosis marker in acute ischemic stroke and ST-elevation myocardial Infarction. Here, we sought to clarify the prognostic value of eosinophil percentage (EOS%) in patients with acute type A aortic dissection (AAAD).
Methods: We examined 183 consecutive AAAD patients. Based on the optimum cut-off value of EOS% determined by X-tile software, patients were classified into the low EOS% (EOS% ≤ 0.1) and high EOS% groups (EOS% > 0.1). We performed multivariate regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival curves to assess the association between EOS% and mortality. Eosinophil accumulation in aortic dissection intraluminal thrombus was confirmed using hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) staining. An external cohort from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV was performed to validate the results.
Results: Relative to surviving patients, those who died during hospitalization had significantly lower EOS% (p = 0.001) but significantly higher WBC (p = 0.002) and neutrophil (p = 0.001) counts. Multivariate regression analysis identified EOS% as an independent predictor of in-hospital and 1-year mortality. KM curves revealed that 1-year cumulative mortality was significantly higher in the low EOS% group, although it was mainly attributed to the higher 30-day mortality. H&E staining revealed massive infiltration of eosinophils in all 20 thrombus specimens. The external validation confirmed that relative to survivors, patients with in-hospital mortality (p = 0.010) had significantly lower EOS%. Moreover, multivariate regression analyses identified that decreased EOS% was independently significantly associated with in-hospital mortality.
Conclusions: Low EOS% is significantly related to increased mortality rates in AAAD patients.
Keywords: Acute type A aortic dissection; Eosinophil; Inflammatory cells; Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care; Mortality; Thrombus.
© 2022. The Author(s).