Abstract: Objective To investigate the association of serum homocysteine and depression withcoronary heart disease (CHD). Methods A total of 118 patients with CHD who were treated in Department of Cardiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, were enrolled as CHD group, with 45 patients withstable angina pectoris(SAP) and 72 with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), and 120 healthy individuals who underwent physical examination in our hospital during the same period of time were enrolled as control group. Coronary angiography was performed for all patients in the CHD group. Results Compared with the control group, the CHD group had significantly higher homocysteine level (22.10±7.46 vs 12.13±4.14, P<0.05) and incidence rate of depression (34.74% vs 21.66%, P<0.05). The CHD group was further divided into SAP subgroup and ACS subgroup, and the SAP subgroup had a significantly higher homocysteinelevel than the ACS subgroup (P<0.05), while there was no significant difference in the incidence rate of depression between the two subgroups (P>0.05). Homocysteine and depression were risk factors for CHD (P<0.001). In the CHD group, the high-homocysteine subgroup had a significantly higher Gensini score than the normal homocysteine subgroup [41(20,56) vs 21.5(13,32), P<0.05], while there was no significant difference in Gensini score between the depression subgroup and the non-depression subgroup (P>0.05). Depression was associated with homocysteine in the patients with CHD, but homocysteine level was not correlated with the severity of depression (P>0.05); in the population without heart disease (the control group), depression was not associated with homocysteine level (P>0.05). Conclusion Homocysteine is an independent risk factor for CHD, and hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with the severity of coronary artery disease. Depression is a risk factor for CHD, and the presence or absence of depression and the severity of depression may not be associated with the severity of coronary artery disease. Depression is associated with homocysteine level in patients with CHD.

Key words: Homocysteine; Coronary heart disease; Depression; Coronary artery stenosis