Coronary angiographic findings in African-American and white patients from a single institution

No data exist comparing clinical and angiographic findings in large numbers of contemporary African-American and white patients from the same hospital. Limited angiographic data on African Americans were obtained from hospitals serving predominantly minority patients, making the valid African-American:white comparisons difficult. The study included 2,624 consecutive white and 1,793 African-American patients who had angiography for diagnostic evaluation of presumed coronary artery disease at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport between 1990 and 1997. Compared to whites of the same sex, a greater proportion of African-American patients had a history of hypertension, stroke, and heart failure. African Americans also had significantly higher systemic and left ventricular pressure, lower ejection fraction, greater echocardiographic left ventricular mass index, and more concentric hypertrophy. The overall proportion of patients with normal or minimal stenosis of coronary artery (<50% narrowing in the luminal diameter) was greater in African Americans than in whites for both men and women. This difference was predominately found in men aged > or = 55 years or older. Except among older men, African-American patients with coronary heart disease had a similar distribution of 1-, 2-, 3-vessel disease and mean stenosis score compared to whites. In conclusion, a higher frequency of normal coronaries and less frequent coronary stenosis were found in older African-American men. The African-American:white differences in angiographic findings were minimal in younger men and in women. However, African Americans had worse clinical profiles than whites.