RESUMEN
Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is characterized by atherosclerotic plaque accumulation in the epicardial arteries. The dynamic nature of the CAD process results in various clinical presentations. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is a practical, widely available marker for assessing the severity of coronary artery disease and helps in the risk stratification of patients with CAD. This study aimed to analyze the severity of CAD regarding the number of vessels involved. Material & Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study included 124 purposively selected patients who underwent elective CAG in the Department of Cardiology, Chittagong Medical College Hospital, Chattogram, from January 2020 to June 2021. SPSS 23.0 software was used for processing and analysis at the end of the data collection period. Results: The age of the patients ranged from 32-75 years with a mean (±SD) age of 53.4 (±9.9) years. The majority of the patients (83.1%) were male with a male-to-female ratio of 4.9:1. On coronary angiography, the majority of the patients (51/124, 41.1%) had triple vessel disease, followed by double vessel disease in 23 (28.5%) patients, single-vessel disease in 31 (25.0%). In 19 (15.4%) patients no significant lesion was observed in any of the vessels. Gensini score ranged between 1 and 176 in the study with a median score of 56.77. The majority of the patients (69.4%) in the present study had a Gensini score ?30 indicating severe stenosis. A positive correlation between RDW and coronary artery disease severity in terms of Gensini score (r=0.393). With the increase of RDW, the Gensini score increases. It was found statistically significant (p=<0.001) by Pearson’s correlation test. There was a positive correlation between RDW and CAD severity regarding the number of vessels involved (rho =0.5). With the increase of RDW, the number of involved vessels increases. It was found statistically significant (p=<0.001) by Spearman’s correlation test. The Median (IQR) value of RDW was 13.5 (13.0-14.0) in patients with mild stenosis compared to 14.5 (13.9-15.0) in patients with severe stenosis. This difference was statistically significant (p<0.001). The median (IQR) value of RDW was the lowest in patients without any significant stenosis in any of the coronary arteries [13.1% (12.7%-13.5%)] and was the highest in patients with triple vessel diseases [14.5% (14.1%-15.0%)]. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that RDW level was an independent predictor for CAD and the severity of coronary stenosis. So, it can be concluded that RDW is an inexpensive routine laboratory test that might help identify high-risk patients before planning for a more invasive treatment strategy.