Severe infections up risk of major cardiovascular disease

After being hospitalized for severe infections, individuals appear to be at increased risk of major cardiovascular disease events, as reported in a study.

For the study, data from 331,683 UK Biobank participants without cardiovascular disease at baseline were used. Risk factors for cardiovascular disease were evaluated. The main outcome of incident major cardiovascular events after infections, defined as myocardial infarction, cardiac death, or fatal or nonfatal stroke, was ascertained through linkage of participants to hospital and mortality registers.

Over a mean follow-up of 11.6 years, 54,434 participants were hospitalized for an infection, with 11,649 experiencing an incident major cardiovascular event. Compared with participants who had no record of infectious disease, those who were hospitalized for infection had a higher risk of major cardiovascular events, mostly irrespective of the subtype of infection.

Multivariable analysis showed that the association between severe infections and incident major cardiovascular event after hospital discharge was strongest during the first month after infection (hazard ratio [HR], 7.87, 95 percent CI, 6.36–9.73) but remained high throughout the follow-up period (HR, 1.47, 95 percent CI, 1.40–1.54).

The findings were consistent in the replication cohort that comprised 271,533 community-dwelling participants from Finland (HR, 7.64, 95 percent CI, 5.82–10.03 during the first month; HR, 1.41, 95 percent CI, 1.34–1.48 during the mean follow-up of 19.2 years).

In an analysis that controlled for traditional cardiovascular risk factors, the population-attributable fraction for severe infections and major cardiovascular events was 4.4 percent in the UK Biobank and 6.1 percent in the replication cohort.