Obstructive coronary artery disease in women presenting with ischemic chest pain: Prevalence and risk determinants

Background: Women present more commonly with atypical angina, false-positive exercise test, and normal/nonobstructive coronary angiogram. It thus becomes essential to identify the predictors of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) in women to avoid unnecessary invasive angiograms. Methods: We prospectively recorded the data of consecutive 578 women who underwent coronary angiography in our institute for typical/atypical chest pain suspected to be secondary to CAD. Results: Normal coronaries/nonobstructive CAD were seen in 273 (47.2%) patients, whereas 305 (52.8%) patients were found to have obstructive CAD (P 55 years, smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol >150 mg/dl, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol