Author(s)

Yehia Abed¹, Amal Jamee^2*

¹Faculty of Public Health, Al Quds University, Gaza, Palestine.
²Cardiology Department, Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza, Palestine.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death in both sexes worldwide, and becomes number one killer in women due to many factors including increase in traditional risk factors, delays in apparition of symptoms, under estimation of diagnosis test and treatment. Our study aims to identify risk factors for coronary artery disease among women with chest pain underwent coronary angiography during years (2010-2013) in cardiology center. The study design is an observational among 688 women-aged 32 - 96 years; the mean age of our study population is 61 years. Risk factors are abstracted from patients’ files. Women with documented coronaries disease tend to be older, have higher, systolic blood pressure, serum level of triglyceride, and impaired clearance creatinine. 59.4% of them are menopause with higher prevalence of hypertension and diabetes (58.6% and 63.6%). Significant positive association is found in women with myocardial infarction, unstable angina, stable angina and presence of obstructive coronary artery disease respectively (89.6%, 82.3%, 59.1%) in opposite women presented with atypical chest pain have high prevalence of normal coronaries (95.7%). About 57.6% have more than three risk factors, and 55.3% are obese or overweight. In addition, 42.1% of them have impaired systolic function. We conclude that cardiovascular risk factors are highly prevalent among Palestinians women in Gaza and the combination of risk factors is common. Interventions to minimize CAD in our population are needed.

Coronary Artery Disease, Risk Factors, Chest Pain, Coronary Angiography, Gaza, Palestine

Abed, Y. and Jamee, A. (2015) Characteristics and Risk Factors Attributed to Coronary Artery Disease in Women Attended Health Services in Gaza-Palestine Observational Study. World Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases, 5, 9-18. doi: 10.4236/wjcd.2015.51002.