The Serum NLRP1 Level and Coronary Artery Calcification: From Association to Development of a Risk-Prediction Nomogram

Abstract

Background: To investigate the correlation between inflammasomes and coronary artery calcification (CAC), and develop and validating a nomogram for predicting the risk of CAC in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: A total of 626 patients with CAD at the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University were enrolled in this study. The patients were divided into the calcification group and the non-calcification group based on the assessment of coronary calcification. We constructed a training set and a validation set through random assignment. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multivariate analysis were performed to identify independent risk factors of CAC in patients with CAD. Based on these independent predictors, we developed a web-based dynamic nomogram prediction model. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC), calibration curves, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to evaluate this nomogram. Results: Age, smoking, diabetes mellitus (DM), hyperlipidemia, the serum level of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor protein 1 (NLRP1), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and triglycerides (TG) were identified as independent risk factors of CAC. The AUC-ROC of the nomogram is 0.881 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.850–0.912) in the training set and 0.825 (95% CI: 0.760–0.876) in the validation set, implying high discriminative ability. Satisfactory performance of this model was confirmed using calibration curves and DCA. Conclusions: The serum NLRP1 level is an independent predictor of CAC. We established a web-based dynamic nomogram, providing a more accurate estimation and comprehensive perspective for predicting the risk of CAC in patients with CAD.

Keywords

• coronary artery calcification
• coronary artery disease
• nlrp1
• prediction model
• nomogram