Angiographic Patterns of Young Patients with Coronary Artery Disease in an Indian Population

The incidence of coronary artery disease has continued to rise in recent decades, even in the developing world, affecting a broad spectrum of the population including young adults less than forty years. This is attributable to the rise in prevalence of conventional risk factors like diabetes mellitus, hypertension, smoking, dyslipidemia, and obesity. Although a significant number of studies have been done on the angiographic profile of patients with coronary artery disease, only a few of these studies were done in young patients and most of the studies were limited to northern India.

In this study, we aimed to determine the angiographic profile of young patients ≤ 40 years in a tertiary care centre in southern India.

A retrospective analytic study was conducted at the Meditrina Specialist Hospital, Kollam, Kerala, India. Individuals of both genders with age ≤ 40 years who were diagnosed with coronary artery disease between June 2021 and May 2022 were included.

A total of 74 patients were included, out of which 62 were male and 12 were female. The mean ± SD age of the participants studied was 36.38 ± 3.99 years Amongst patients who had significant coronary artery disease, 24 (57.14%) had single vessel disease, 13 (31.00%) had double vessel disease, and 5 (11.86%) had triple vessel disease. The left anterior descending (LAD) artery was found to be the most frequently involved in all patterns of coronary artery disease (CAD). Male gender and diabetes were the most common risk factors for CAD present in 29.3% of patients studied.

Male gender and diabetes were responsible for the relatively high incidence of premature CAD in this study with single vessel disease being the most prevalent finding. The LAD artery was the most commonly affected followed by RCA and LCX with right PLB being the least vessel involved.