The impact of gender on vessel size in patients with angiographically normal coronary arteries.

Full Abstract

INTRODUCTION:
Female gender has been associated with worse clinical outcomes following coronary revascularization. Whether a gender-specific difference in vessel size is contributing to this finding remains controversial. We sought to better define the relationship between gender and coronary artery size.

METHODS:
Baseline characteristics were obtained and quantitative coronary angiography was performed on 145 consecutive patients with angiographically normal (smooth luminal surface with no evidence of any irregularity in the coronary tree) coronary arteries. Two separate orthogonal measurements each were taken of the left main, proximal left anterior descending, proximal circumflex, proximal right coronary artery, and ostial posterior descending arteries. An average coronary size, derived from five separate coronary artery measurements, was tabulated for each patient.

RESULTS:
After correcting for confounding variables, including BSA, height, diabetes, and left ventricular hypertrophy using multivariate linear regression, female gender remained a strong independent predictor of coronary vessel size (Beta =-0.30, P = 0.004). Female gender was associated with a 0.30 mm decrease in average coronary size.

CONCLUSION:
Gender is a strong, independent predictor of coronary artery size even when taking into account differences in body size. This difference may contribute to worse outcomes of women undergoing coronary revascularization.

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Author information

Author/s: Yang, Felix (F); Minutello, Robert M (RM); Bhagan, Sherrita (S); Sharma, Atul (A); Wong, S Chiu (SC);

Affiliation: Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York 10021, USA. fey2002(-atsign-)med.cornell.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Journal of interventional cardiology (J Interv Cardiol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Aug; vol 19 (issue 4) : pp 340-4

Dates: Created 2006/08/02; Completed 2006/10/10; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 16881982, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Aged
Chest Pain - epidemiology; radiography
Confounding Factors (Epidemiology)
Coronary Angiography
Coronary Artery Disease - epidemiology; pathology; radiography
Coronary Vessels - anatomy & histology
Female

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