A recent study has established clonal hematopoiesis as a new risk factor for a type of heart disease.
The study, published Aug. 30 in Nature Medicine, set out to determine if clonal hematopoiesis contributed to atherosclerosis — the formation of lesions in the arterial wall that underlies most cardiovascular disorders — or if it was a consequence of the disorder. Clonal hematopoiesis is a condition that acquires somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem cells.
The study used data from 3,692 participants with available blood DNA samples, multiple multimodal vascular imaging data and written informed consent for DNA sequencing analyses. Participants were between 40 and 55 years old at enrollment and underwent three study visits (a baseline and follow-ups after approximately three and six years).
Approximately 25% of individuals carried at least one clonal hematopoiesis-related mutation detectable with our sequencing approach, researchers found.
"In clonal hematopoiesis, each mutated gene acts through different mechanisms and will therefore likely require specific interventions to target its effects," José Javier Fuster, MD, who led the study, told SciTech Daily. "This study lays the groundwork for using colchicine for/in the personalized prevention of cardiovascular disease of carriers of mutations in TET2, but new clinical trials will be needed to conclusively demonstrate its effectiveness in these individuals."