The circulating lipoprotein (a) [Lp (a)] concentration is recognized as a primary genetically driven risk marker for atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. However, there is little re-search on potential interplay between Lp (a) and cardiovascular risk factors in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD).

We included 415 patients with chronic peripheral artery disease or acute limb ischemia un-dergoing endovascular intervention from a prospective study. We aimed at giving a descrip-tive overview of the clinical presentation of patients with PAD and to assess their Lp (a) lev-els. Additionally, we studied the association between Lp (a) levels and cardiovascular risk factors. Lp (a) levels were dichotomized (> vs. > 700 mg/L) based on reference values from the literature.

The median Lp (a) was 112.5 mg/L (20% and 80% quantiles: 65 mg/L; 575.6 mg/L). Patients with an Lp (a) ≥ 700 mg/L presented with a higher prevalence of chronic kidney disease (41.3% vs. 33.2%), prior coronary artery disease (52% vs. 38.5%), prior percutaneous coro-nary intervention (42.7% vs. 33.2%), but not of prior cerebrovascular disease (16.0% vs. 19.4%). Other cardiovascular risk factors, notably BMI and diabetes mellitus, appeared to be similarly distributed between groups. We found a very low positive correlation between Lp (a) levels and both low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride; Figure 1, Table 1.

The prevalence of prior cardiovascular events, including stroke and heart infarction, was higher in patients with elevated Lp (a) levels. We confirmed the lack of correlation between Lp(a) levels and other lipoproteins.