Distribution of coronary artery disease severity and risk factors in Afro-Caribbeans

Traditional risk factors are strong predictors of the incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD), but their association with disease severity remains controversial and could differ across ethnic groups.

In this study, we assessed the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors (CRFs) in Afro-Caribbean patients with documented CAD, and sought to identify which of these factors are related to disease severity.

We retrospectively studied 420 consecutive patients with CAD. Disease severity was determined from the results of invasive coronary angiography, based on the presence or absence of multiple (two or three) diseased vessels and the myocardial jeopardy (MJ) score.

In the studied population (mean age 64.7 ± 12.4 years), hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia were the most frequent modifiable CRFs, present in 75.9, 47.8 and 37.8% of patients, respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that diabetes, male sex and personal cardiovascular history significantly increased the risk of multivessel CAD: odds ratios (ORs) of 1.53 (1.01-2.33; P=0.048), 1.61 (1.02-2.55; P=0.043) and 1.68 (1.11-2.56; P=0.015), respectively. Obesity was an independent negative predictor, with an OR of 0.48 (0.29-0.79; P=0.004). Other traditional CRFs (hypertension, dyslipidaemia, smoking, age and family history of vascular disease) were not associated with CAD severity. For high-risk lesions (MJ score ≥8), both diabetes and hypertension were independent predictors of disease severity, whereas obesity was no longer a protective factor.

Diabetes emerged as the strongest modifiable risk factor predictor of multivessel disease in Afro-Caribbean patients, whereas obesity was an independent protective factor. The underlying mechanisms of these associations should be relevant to disease prevention.