Background: High-risk individuals for CHD could be diagnosed by some non-invasive and low-priced techniques such as Minnesota ECG coding and rose angina questionnaire (RQ).
Objectives: The present study aimed at determining the risk of incident CHD according to ECG and RQ besides diabetes and other metabolic risk factors in our population.
Methods: Participants comprised of 5431 individuals aged ≥ 30 years within the framework of Tehran lipid and glucose study. Based on their status on history of CHD, ECG, and RQ at baseline, all participants were classified to 5 following groups: (1) History-Rose-ECG- (the reference group); (2) History-Rose+ECG-; (3) History-Rose-ECG+; (4) History-Rose+ECG+; and (5) History+. We used Cox regression model to find the role of ECG and RQ on CHD, independent of other risk factors.
Results: Overall, 562 CHD events were detected during the median of 10.3 years follow-up. CHD incidence rates were 55.9 and 9.09 cases per 1000 person-year for participants with and without history of CHD, respectively. Hazard ratios (HRs) (95% CIs) were 4.11 (3.27 - 5.11) for History + and 2.18 (1.63 - 2.90), 1.92 (1.47 - 2.51), and 2.48 (1.46 - 4.20) for History-Rose+ECG-, History-Rose-ECG+, and History-Rose+ECG+, respectively. RQ and ECG had the same HRs as high as those for hypertension and hypercholesterolemia; however, diabetes showed statistically and clinically more effects on CVD than RQ and ECG.
Conclusions: RQ in general and, ECG especially in asymptomatic patients, were good predictors for CHD events in both Iranian males and females; however, their predictive powers were lower than that of diabetes.
Keywords: Coronary Heart Disease; Electrocardiography, Diabetes; Hypercholesterolemia; Hypertension; Population Based Cohort; Rose Questionnaire.