Ascending aortic BP waveform may be related to CAD risk in women, but not men.

2004 NOV 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Ascending aortic blood pressure waveform may be related to coronary artery disease risk in women, but not men, report cardiologists in Poland.

"Recent studies have demonstrated that fractional pulse pressure and fractional diastolic pressure are related to the risk of coronary artery disease. However, the effect of the ascending aortic pressure waveform on the risk of coronary artery disease in men and women analyzed separately has not been reported," said P. Jankowski and colleagues, Jagiellonian University, Krakow.

Jankowski's group "[assessed] the relation between ascending aortic blood pressure waveform and the presence of coronary artery disease in men and in women. The study group consisted of 447 patients (302 men and 145 women; mean age: 57.6 [+ or -] 9.8 years) with preserved left ventricular function who were undergoing first diagnostic coronary angiography."

The researchers reported that "after multivariate stepwise adjustments, the odds ratio (OR) and confidence interval (CI) of having coronary artery disease in women was (OR are reported for standard deviation increase in each variable):

* pulse pressure OR 1.61 (95% CI 1.06-2.46);

* fractional systolic pressure OR 1.72 (95% CI 1.08-2.71);

* fractional diastolic pressure OR 0.58 (95% CI 0.37-0.92);