EFFECT OF CORONARY RISK-FACTORS ON CORONARY ANGIOGRAPHIC MORPHOLOGY IN PATIENTS WITH ISCHEMIC-HEART-DISEASE

We investigated the effects of hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus, which are major coronary risk factors, on the angi ographic morphology of coronary artery lesions in 204 patients with pr evious myocardial infarction or stable-effort angina: 39 patients with hypercholesterolemia (serum total cholesterol >240 mg/dl) without hyp ertension and diabetes, 51 patients with hypertension without diabetes and hypercholesterolemia, 24 patients with diabetes without hypertens ion and hypercholesterolemia, and 90 patients without any of these 3 r isk factors (control). Patients without coronary artery lesions were e xcluded. The severity of coronary artery lesions is expressed as the G ensini score and the morphology is classified according to Rosch's cla ssification. The distribution of coronary artery lesions did not diffe r significantly between the 4 groups. The Gensini score was significan tly higher in the hypercholesterolemia group than in the other groups (p<0.05). Short concentric lesions were more frequent in the hyperchol esterolemia group than in the control group (p<0.01), and tubular regu lar lesions were more frequent in the hypertension and diabetes groups than in the control group (p<0.01). These results suggest that hyperc holesterolemia has a greater influence on the severity of coronary art ery lesions than does hypertension or diabetes, and that the progressi on of coronary atherosclerosis may differ among patients with these ri sk factors.