Cor Vasa 2015, 57(4):e265-e269 | DOI: 10.1016/j.crvasa.2015.05.002

Gender disparity impact on the vascular calcification and pericardial fat volume in patients with suspected coronary artery disease

Hussein Nafakhi^a,*, Abdulameer A. Al-Mosawi^b, Hasan A. Al-Nafakh^b, Ahmed A. Nafakhi^c

^a Internal Medicine Department, AL-Sader Teaching Hospital, Medicine College, Kufa University, Najaf, Iraq

^b Radiology Department, Medicine College, Kufa University, Najaf, Iraq

^c AL-Najaf Health Bureau, Ministry of Health, Iraq

Background: There is no consensus in the literature on the influence of gender on the correlations between coronary artery calcification (CAC) with aortic root calcification (ARC) and pericardial fat volume (PFV).

Objective: To investigate the impact of gender on the correlations between PFV, CAC and ARC in Iraqi patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) assessed by multi-detector CT (MDCT).

Methods: One hundred thirty consecutive Iraqi patients with intermediate pretest probability of ischemic heart disease who underwent MDCT examination for assessment of CAD were recruited between January and December 2014. Of these, 111 patients were found to be eligible and were enrolled in the study.
Patients were divided into male group (n = 54) and female group (n = 57).

Results: In male patients, PFV showed no significant correlation with CAC and ARC. CAC showed a significant correlation with ARC (r = 0.392, p = 0.003). The correlation between CAC and ARC persisted even after adjustment for PFV, age and cardiac risk factors (p = 0.01, CI = 0.067-0.492). In female patients, PFV showed a significant correlation with CAC (r = 0.413, p = 0.001) and this correlation persisted even after multivariate regression adjustment for ARC, age and cardiac risk factors (p = 0.016 , CI = 0.067-0.612) while there were no significant correlation between PFV and ARC. ARC showed no significant correlation with CAC and PFV. ARC showed a significant association with male gender (p = 0.04) while there were no significant difference in PFV and CAC between the two groups of study.

Conclusion: PFV was significantly associated with CAC in female while ARC showed a significant association with CAC in male.

Keywords: Aortic root; Calcification; Coronary artery; MDCT; Pericardial fat

Received: March 30, 2015; Revised: May 1, 2015; Accepted: May 4, 2015; Published: August 1, 2015  Show citation