Plasma fibrinogen and coronary heart disease in urban Japanese

There is little information on the relation of plasma fibrinogen concentrat ion to the risk of coronary heart disease in Asians, including Japanese, wh ose plasma fibrinogen concentration has been reported to be low by Western standards. The authors conducted a prospective study with 4.8 years of foll ow-up of 11,977 men and women aged 21-89 years (mean value of fibrinogen = 267 mg/dl) living or working in Osaka, Japan, in 1990-1996 to examine the r elation of plasma fibrinogen with the incidence of coronary heart disease ( myocardial infarction and angina pectoris). Mean fibrinogen concentration w as 293.6 mg/dl for men who developed coronary heart disease (n = 35) compar ed with 261.6 mg/dl for men free of coronary heart disease (n = 8,094; diff erence, p < 0.01), and 355.2 mg/dl for women who developed coronary heart d isease (n = 6) compared with 276.8 mg/dl for women free of coronary heart d isease (n = 3,842; difference, p < 0.01). With a Cox proportional hazards m odel to adjust for cardiovascular risk factors, the relative risk for the h ighest fibrinogen quartile (greater than or equal to 295 mg/dl) compared wi th the lowest (<228 mg/dl) was 4.8 (95% confidence interval: 1.4, 16.8, p = 0.01) for coronary heart disease, and 3.8 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1 3.4, p = 0.04) for myocardial infarction. Plasma fibrinogen is useful to pr edict the risk of coronary heart disease among urban Japanese, whose mean p lasma fibrinogen is relatively low.