The analysis of serum lipid levels in patients with spinal cord injury.

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective study.

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this investigation were to evaluate the serum lipid profile among a broad sample of patients with spinal cord injury (SCI), examining the impact of disease duration, lesion level, lesion grade and functional activity level on serum lipid levels of patients with SCI.

SETTING: Ankara Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Training and Research Hospital, Turkey.

METHODS: Serum lipid profiles of 269 participants with SCI were analyzed and correlated to disease duration, lesion level, lesion grade and ambulation status.

RESULTS: Total cholesterol (TC) was higher than normal in 21.2%, low density lipoprotein cholesterol in 24.4%, and triglycerides levels in 31% of the patients. The high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) level was found to be lower than 40 mg/dl in 79.5% of the patients, TC/HDL-c ratio was 4.5 and above in 65.7% of the patients in our study. TC/HDL-c ratio was significantly higher in patients with SCI with a disease duration of 0-12 months than the group with a longer disease duration (P = 0.009). TC/HDL-c ratio was significantly higher in patients who could not be community ambulated than the patients who were community ambulated (P = 0.005). HDL-c levels in patients with motor complete SCI were significantly lower than patients with motor incomplete SCI (P = 0.028).

CONCLUSION: Dyslipidemia is observed in a large number of patients with SCI. The risk of dyslipidemia was seen to have increased in motor complete SCI patients, in patients who can not be community ambulated and whose disease duration is between 0 to 12 months.