Prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis in Babylon Governorate : histopathological postmortem prospective study

Abstract EN

-There is no previous postmortem study about coronary atherosclerosis in the Arab Homeland, including Iraq.

Coronary atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death worldwide, and represents a major problem in Iraq causing death to many young people suddenly.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence and severity of coronary atherosclerosis among Babylon Governorate resident.

This is a prospective randomized cross-sectional study, which included autopsy material from 80 cases collected during the period from 1\11\2013 to 1\7\2014, referred to the Office of Forensic Medicine in Babylon.

The cases were divided into 7 groups according to age.

After extracting the heart, three representative specimens from each main coronary artery were obtained for Histopathological Examination, after staining with hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) stains.

The atherosclerotic lesions were classified into fibro fatty and advanced lesions, thereafter the results were subjected to statistical analysis.

The results were as follow: 70% of the cases were males and 30% females, their ages ranged between 13- 79 years.

More than 60% of cases fallen in the age range 21-40 years.

The overall prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis was 91.25% for all age groups; 92.9% of males and 87.5% of females were affected.

This prevalence increased with age progression to become almost 100% after age of 40 years old for both (males and females).

Moreover the prevalence for advanced lesions only was (61.25%),also it was increasing with age and becoming 100% after age of 50 years old for both (males and females).

There is an unexpectedly high prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis in Iraqi people, which is the highest in Asia when compared to results of other similar studies conducted in other countries.

Also it was observed that atherosclerosis started as early as 17 years old.

An increased prevalence of atherosclerosis was found in the present studied population, specifically the young individuals' accentuate that is necessary to institute the prevention early.

It is hoped that the data obtained in this study will be a baseline data for further studies by other investigators throughout all Iraqi Governorates to study atherosclerosis in Iraq overall