Prevalence of classical risk factors in Polish women with premature coronary artery disease

BACKGROUND

It is generally believed that in 50% of perimenopausal women several factors other than classical risk factors play a significant role in the development of premature coronary artery disease (CAD).

AIM

To determine the prevalence of five classical risk factors (cigarette smoking, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia and obesity) in women aged〈 55 years with premature CAD.

METHODS

We performed a single-centre, case-control study in women〈 55 years with angiographically confirmed CAD or troponin-positive acute coronary syndrome. A total of 330 female patients were enrolled between April 2005 and January 2008. The control group consisted of 347 age-matched healthy women from a similar region selected from the National Health Survey WOBASZ study (Polish Multi-centre Population Health Survey) designed to assess the cardiovascular risk in the Polish adult population.

RESULTS

Compared to age-matched healthy controls, women with premature CAD had a very high prevalence of traditional risk factors - hypercholesterolaemia (82% vs 68%), smoking (current and former) (81% vs 48%), and hypertension (68% vs 42%). Women with premature CAD had 4.3 times more often diabetes, 1.68 times smoking and 1.63 times hypertension compared to controls. At least one of five classical risk factors was present in 98.8% of patients, compared to 89% in controls, while 10% of patients vs 1.4% of controls had all five of them.

CONCLUSIONS

Classical risk factors are present in the vast majority of females with premature CAD - in 99% of them at least one CAD risk factor is present. Premature CAD is most frequently associated with smoking, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia.

Polymorphisms of the beta-1 and beta-2 adrenergic receptors in Polish patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy

BACKGROUND

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a disorder characterised by dilation and impaired contractility of the left or both ventricles. This multifactorial disease has a strong genetic component with familial occurrence. A number of genes have been associated with idiopathic DCM (IDCM) including beta-1 (b1-AR) and beta-2 (b2-AR) adrenergic receptors. b1-AR and b2-AR are G-coupled proteins which play an important role in the regulation of heart rate and cardiac contractility. The beta-adrenergic receptor pathway is altered in heart failure. Recent studies have discovered functionally relevant and common polymorphisms in both b1-AR and b2-AR.

AIM

We investigated the frequency of the b1-AR (Ser49Gly, Arg389Gly) and b2-AR (Arg16Gly, Gln27Glu, Thr164Ile) polymorphisms in patients with IDCM in comparison to controls in the Polish population.

METHODS

We used a case-control study design comparing a series of consecutive, unrelated 97 IDCM patients with 105 healthy blood donors. Polymorphisms were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLP).

RESULTS

There was no significant difference in relation to genotype distribution and allele frequencies of any analysed b1-AR and b2-AR polymorphisms between IDCM patients and controls. The analysis of polymorphism associations did not reveal a higher frequency of coexisting b2-AR Gly16Gln27, Gly16Glu27 and Arg16Gln27 genotypes alone or in combination with the b1-AR Arg389 allele in IDCM.

CONCLUSION

Our data showed that the studied beta-adrenergic receptor polymorphisms did not seem to play a significant role in IDCM in the Polish population.