Introduction:

Bronchiectasis is a chronic inflammatory disorder, which is to promote cardiovascular events. Whether increased severity of bronchiectasis and resulting inflammation is associated with increased cardiovascular risk is unknown.

Methods:

The EMBARC registry is a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort study across 27 European countries and Israel. Clinical data were collected from adult patients (aged ?18 years) at baseline and annual follow-up visits using electronic case report form. Time to first myocardial infarction (MI) was modelled using interval censored Cox proportional hazards regression.

Results:

Between 2015 and 2023, 18486 individuals were enrolled into the EMBARC registry. 8997 individuals with at least 1 year follow-up and without prior MI were identified at baseline and included in this analysis. The median age was 68 years (IQR 58-74), 5603 participants were female (62.3%) and 3394 participants were male (37.7%). The most common cause of bronchiectasis in the 8997 individuals was idiopathic (3368 cases, 37.4%), followed by post-infective (2003 cases, 22.3%). Overall, 79 new MI were found on follow up. After adjusting for multiple confounders, we observed that frequent exacerbations of bronchiectasis (?3) were significantly associated with MI, with an unadjusted Hazard Ratio (HR) of 2.76 (95% CI 1.14-6.69, p=0.02) and an adjusted HR of 2.75 (95% CI 1.27-5.74, p=0.009). There are no significant differences with MI between gender, with a HR of 1.19 (95% CI 0.69-2.05, p=0.53) for female participants.  

Conclusion:

Frequent exacerbations may increase the risk of cardiovascular events in people with bronchiectasis.