Oxidative stress and cardiovascular disease events

A method for assessing risk of a human patient with coronary stenosis for experiencing one or more cardiovascular events selected from the group consisting of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke or transient ischemic attack, and recurrent ischemia requiring percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), coronary bypass surgery, or surgery or stenting of peripheral arteries, and administering a treatment regimen based on whether the human patient has an increased risk of experiencing the one or more cardiovascular events, the method comprising the steps of:

• (a) obtaining monocytes or monocyte derived microvesicles from a blood or blood-derived sample from the human patient;
• (b) measuring expression of cytochrome c oxidase, subunit I (COX1) in the monocytes or monocyte derived microvesicles;
• (c) determining the human patient has a decreased expression of COX1, compared to reference measurements from monocytes or monocyte derived microvesicles of one or more control patients not having cardiovascular disease and who were not undergoing treatment of cardiovascular disease, in the monocytes or monocyte derived microvesicles;
• and
• (d) administering a treatment regimen for the one or more cardiovascular events,
• wherein the treatment regimen is selected from surgery and a medicament.