[Active Smoking and Coronary Risk in a Population of a Spanish Health-Care Centre: An Observational Cohort Study]

Smoking is a major risk factor for multiple chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer, and an established risk factor for premature death .The objective was to analyze the association between smoking and total coronary risk (incidence of lethal and non-lethal coronary events) in a cohort of 35-74 years old patients followed for 10 years.

Longitudinal, observational study of a retrospective cohort followed for ten years in primary care practices in Badajoz (Spain). 1011 patients (mean 55.7 year-old; 56.0% women) without evidence of cardiovascular disease was studied. Multivariate analysis was performed using a binary logistic regression model, introducing as the dependent variable the presence of total coronary events during the follow-up period.

29.1% of the patients were smokers. Smokers were younger (52.1 vs 57.2 years, p smaller than 0.001), with less prevalence of arterial hypertension (46.9% vs 61.5%, p smaller than 0.01), obesity (25.5% vs 31.8%, p=0,055) and lower HDL-cholesterol (45.7 vs 54.0 mg/dl, p smaller than 0.001). During the follow-up, they presented a higher mortality (11.2% vs 6.7%, p smaller than 0.05) and higher incidence of total coronary events (14.3% vs 9.2%, p smaller than 0.05). The final model of the logistic regression multivariate analysis revealed that only smoking and age are predictor variables of total coronary events, the greater odds ratio (OR) corresponding to smoking [OR: 2.33; 95% confidence interval (CI):1.31-4.16; p smaller than 0.01].

In patients aged 35-74 years followed during 10 years, smoking doubles the risk of total coronary events.