Importance of Secondary Prevention in Coronary Heart Disease

Background and Objectives: The present study evaluates documentation and control of cardiovascular risk factors (RFs) in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) during routine outpatient visits at a single tertiary center in western Romania and places these findings in descriptive context relative to SURF-CHD reports from Europe. Materials and Methods: We have enrolled 136 consecutive patients between 18 and 80 years old with coronary artery disease attending routine outpatient clinic check-ups between May 2019 and July 2020. All patients had been diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome or stable angina pectoris and had been treated either by PCI or CABG. Comparisons with SURF-CHD were primarily descriptive due to non-harmonized denominators and lack of patient-level data; inferential testing was limited to variables with clear n/N in both cohorts. Results: Most patients (81%) were males with a mean age of 61.7 years. 93.4% of the patients had undergone PCI, and 4.4% had coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Regarding risk factors, 25% were current smokers, while 50% were former smokers and the mean BMI value was 29.9 (±6.07). While most patients (80.1%) revealed no previous history of dyslipidemia, 62.5% had no previous history of arterial hypertension, and 84.6% had no previous history of diabetes mellitus. Mean LDL cholesterol levels after a major coronary event remained 93.55 (±43.52) mg/dL, mean HbA1c levels were 7.86 (±1.40)%, while mean systolic blood pressure was 129 (±14.9) mmHg. Conclusions: In this single-center audit, several modifiable RFs remained suboptimally controlled despite established CHD. These results should not be generalized nationally; rather, they highlight center-level opportunities for improving secondary prevention and underscore the need for multicenter, nationally representative registries in Romania.