Gender Specific Coronary Artery Diameters in CT Coronary Angiogram: A Comparative Study in Female and Male Population

Abstract

Objectives: Women show significant in-hospital morbidity and mortality with greater extent of symptoms, poorer post-revascularization outcome with increased restenosis and repeat revascularization after angioplasty, than men. Smaller sized coronary arteries in females can be attributable for this differential outcome, which is also similar in case of Indians, compared to Caucasians. Our aim is to assess the gender-specific difference in coronary arteries using noninvasive Multidetector Computed-Tomography Coronary-Angiogram(CT-CAG) and comparing the same with other racial database. Materials and Methods: With Ethics committee approval, present retrospective comparative study conducted in 128CT-CAG scans in 18-45years aged 100 women and 89 men with no atherosclerotic burden excluding pathological coronaries and high calcium score>100. Diameter measurements of proximal (≤10mm) segments of right coronary artery(RCA), left main coronary artery(LMCA), left anterior descending(LAD) and circumflex(LCx) arteries were taken, averaged and compared using 2-sample z-test. Considering the obtained mean diameters of total sample as South-Indian dataset which is then compared with Caucasians dataset taken from previous study. Results: Women showed smaller coronary artery diameters compared to men in all the arteries, with greater gender-specific age-adjusted difference in LMCA, followed by LAD, RCA and least in LCX. South-Indians showed statistically significant smaller diameters of all the coronary arteries compared to Caucasians. Conclusion: Gender-specific difference among the coronary arteries does exist, with females having smaller dimensions; South-Indians also show smaller diameters. This warrants a clinician for gender-specific approaches during the interventions because of technical difficulties.