FREQUENCY OF CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE (CAD) RISK FACTORS IN ARMED FORCES

CAD: Risk factors

Abstract

Objective: To determine the frequency of risk factors of coronary artery disease (CAD) in apparently healthy soldiers of Pakistan Armed Forces.

Original Article

Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of medicine, CMH Okara from July 2012 to Dec 2012.

Patients and Methods: The study included 2215 male currently serving soldiers in age range of 18 to 52 years by consecutive sampling. Relevant history, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and blood pressure (BP) of each subject were recorded. BMI > 25 kg/m² and WC > 90 cm was considered obesity and abdominal obesity respectively. BP > 140/90 mmHg was defined as hypertension. All the participants of study underwent blood glucose fasting, blood glucose random, ECG recording, personality assessment and lipid profile. Risk estimation was done using Eric Brittain scoring system.

Results: In our study group 95.5% patients were having at least 1 risk factor of CAD, 54 % were having 2 to 4 risk factors while 3.93% had > 4 risk factors. Risk estimation of CAD using Eric Brittain scoring system showed that a large proportion of study group had high probability of developing ischemic heart disease in next 6 years.

Conclusion: A large proportion of our soldiers are harboring risk of CAD due to increase in frequency of 8 conventional CAD risk factors especially obesity.