The Study on the Association between Smoking and Coronary Artery Stenosis in Some Autopsy Cases / 한국역학회지

ABSTRACT

Coronary artery disease(CAD), such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction and sudden death has been considered the major cause of death for decades and their incidence and prevalence are still increasing. Numerous studies have been done on the risk factor analysis of CAD. But, they were usually based on the clinical and epidemiologic studies of the living patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the risk factors for the cardiovascular diseases in autopsy cases from Korean men. The author analysed 81 cases of heart who underwent legal autopsy from Aug. to Dec. 1998. The author measured percent stenosis of coronary artery, site of stenosis, perimeter of aorta, heart weight, body weight, and height and checked the past history including smoking, drinking and age. The results were as follows: 1) Coronary artery stenosis had a positive correlation with age, perimeter of aorta and smoking, but had no correlation with body weight, height, body mass index, heart weight, and drinking. 2) According to the logistic regression analysis, smoking amount and age were significantly associated with coronary artery stenosis. In conclusion, smoking was the most significant independent variable for coronary artery stenosis of some Korean men.