RISK FACTOR-ANALYSIS AMONG EGYPTIAN PATIENTS WHO UNDERWENT CORONARY-ARTERY BYPASS-SURGERY

We conducted a retrospective review of Egyptian patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery at our institution between 1980 and 1995. We examined the prevalence of coronary artery disease risk f actors and evaluated the early postoperative results. We then compared these results with the corresponding data in a subset of American pat ients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting at our institution in 1993. There were 290 Egyptian patients. 275 men and 15 women. The mean age was 54.5 years (range, 30 to 70 years). Angina was present in 258 (89%) of the Egyptian patients; of these, 186 (72.1%) were in Can adian Cardiovascular Society class 3 or 4. Risk factor analysis reveal ed a high prevalence of hyperlipidemia (69.7%), cigarette-smoking (66. 6%), family history of coronary artery disease (53.1%), hypertension ( 46.9%), obesity (46.2%), and diabetes mellitus (32.4%). Comparisons be tween the 2 groups showed that the risk factors, except for hypertensi on, were significantly higher in the Egyptian patients, despite ?he ol der age of the Americans (mean, 65.5 years; range, 22 to 88 years). Th e prevalence of triple-vessel disease was 86.6% in the Egyptian patien ts and 51.0% in the American patients (p<0.001). The operative morbidi ty rates in the Egyptian patients were low: these included arrhythmias (13.8%), bleeding (13.4%), infection (7.6%), low cardiac output (3.4% ), myocardial infarction (3.4%), and cerebrovascular accident (1.4%). The hospital mortality rate was 1.4% for the Egyptians and 1.7% for th e Americans (NS). These results show that, despite the high prevalence of risk factors among Egyptian patients with coronary artery disease, coronary artery bypass grafting can be performed with low operative m orbidity and mortality rates.