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 ± 13.7 mg/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.