The Relationship between Body Mass Index and the Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients Referred for Coronary Angiography

Abstract

Background and Aim . Obesity is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and may be associated with more severe coronary artery disease (CAD); however, the relationship between body mass index [BMI (kg/m 2 )] and CAD severity is uncertain and debatable. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between BMI and angiographic severity of CAD. Methods . Duke Jeopardy Score (DJS), a prognostic tool predictive of 1-year mortality in CAD, was assigned to angiographic data of patients ≥18 years of age (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">8</mml:mn><mml:mtext>,</mml:mtext><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">079</mml:mn></mml:math>). Patients were grouped into 3 BMI categories: normal (18.5–24.9 kg/m 2 ), overweight (25.0–29.9 kg/m 2 ), and obese (≥30 kg/m 2 ); and multivariable adjusted hazard ratios for 1-year all-cause and cardiac-specific mortality were calculated. Results . Cardiac risk factor prevalence (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia) significantly increased with increasing BMI. Unadjusted all-cause and cardiac-specific 1-year mortality tended to rise with incremental increases in DJS, with the exception of DJS 6 (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"><mml:mi>p</mml:mi><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">0.001</mml:mn></mml:math>). After adjusting for potential confounders, no significant association of BMI and all-cause (HR 0.70, 95% CI .48–1.02) or cardiac-specific (HR 1.11, 95% CI .64–1.92) mortality was found. Conclusions . This study failed to detect an association of BMI with 1-year all-cause or cardiac-specific mortality after adjustment for potential confounding variables.