Relationship Between Established Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Specific Coronary Angiographic Findings in a Large Cohort of Greek Catheterized Patients

Abstract

We evaluated the relationship between coronary artery stenosis status and established cardiovascular risk factors in a large population of 1228 patients who consecutively underwent coronary angiography. Smoking proved to be the most important predictive factor for angiographically significant coronary artery disease (CAD), followed by dyslipidemia, diabetes, family history, and hypertension in a descending order of significance. Obesity rates did not differ significantly between the CAD positive and negative groups, nor changed significantly as the number of affected vessels increased. Smoking, dyslipidemia, and diabetes were positively associated with atherosclerotic involvement of all 3 major coronary arteries, whereas hypertension related only to significant stenosis of left anterior descending and left circumflex artery. The only established risk factors that could reliably predict left main stem disease were diabetes and age. Furthermore, large-scale studies will delineate the implications of the existing interrelationship between clinical and angiographic features.