Uzma Bashir, Ali Yawar Alam, Waqas Ahmed.
Risk factors in patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome to a tertiary.
Pak J Cardiol Jan ;18(1-2):25-31.

care facility Our study evaluates the most commonly implicated risk factors associated with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) in Pakistani patients presenting to a tertiary care facility. Methods: All patients presenting with Syndrome ACS to Shifa International Hospital over the six month period extending from May 2004 to December 2004 were included in this descriptive study. Patients were questioned for the presence or absence of conventional risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD). Body Mass Index (MBI) and lipid profiles were also documented. Data was entered into SPSS version 10.0 to obtain descriptive statistics. Results: Over six months, 110 patients conforming to the inclusion / exclusion criteria were included in this study. 72.8% of the patients were from the Rawalpindi/Islamabad area. The male to female ratio was roughly 3:1. 22.7% of the patients were below the age of 50 years, and smoking was substantially more implicated in this population subset as compared to the rest of the study patients. Considering the term "Dyslipidemia" to encompass any one or more individual lipoprotein abnormalities and not merely elevation in total serum cholesterol, 96.5% of the patients were found to be dyslipidemic, most commonly on account of HDL less than 40 mg/dl (74.4%) or LDL more than 100mg/dI (72.1 %) and elevated triglycerides (64.9%). BMI>25kg/m2 was present in 41 % of the patients, and 22. 1 % were obese with BMI> 30kg/m2. Males were more likely to be smokers and females were more likely to be diabetic and hypertensive. Three simultaneous risk factors (hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia) were present in 4 1 % of the cases. Conclusions: Traditional and validated risk factors were present in all patients. Hypertension, dyslipidemia and elevated BMI were seen more frequently in this patient population. In addition, more than a third of the patients had more than three risk factors for CAD, an observation which has significant preventive management implications.

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