Early-onset Coronary Artery Disease Clinical and Hereditary Aspects.

Early-onset Coronary Artery Disease Clinical and Hereditary Aspects. Dan Med J. 2017 Sep;64(9): Authors: Christiansen MK Abstract A family history of coronary artery disease (CAD) is an important risk factor for adverse coronary events, in particular if the disease has an early onset. The risk of CAD is influenced by genetic and environmental factors with a greater genetic contribution earlier in life. Through recent years the advances in genetic techniques has led to an increased understanding of the genetic background of CAD, which may potentially be translated into clinical use. The studies of this thesis aimed to investigate the burden of conventional risk factors and control in early-onset CAD (i.e. < 40 years), and to characterize and quantify subclinical atherosclerosis in their relatives. Furthermore, the aim was to explore the impact of common genetic risk variants on the age of onset, familial clustering and disease severity. In study I, 143 patients with early-onset CAD were recruited from the Western Denmark Heart Registry and risk factor control was evaluated. The study revealed that risk factors are common in early-onset CAD and that a large room for risk factor improvement remains. In study II, we used coronary computed tomography angiography to compare the coronary plaque burden and characteristics between 88 first-degree relatives of patients with early-onset CAD and 88 controls with no familial predisposition. Re...
Source: Danish Medical Journal - Category: General Medicine Tags: Dan Med J Source Type: research