Abstract

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the modern society. The cost of managing CAD is a remarkable economic burden and so prevention of CAD is very essential step in its management. The majority of CAD patients have at least one cardiovascular risk factor, but 20% of them have no traditional risk factors. Persistent focus on newer risk factors is necessitate as they may further step forward our ability to predict future risk and determine treatment. Recently, homocysteine has been recognized as a risk factor for CAD. This study was conducted to find out the homocysteine as one of the risk factors of CAD in population of Ahmedabad.

Objective: The aim of this study is to categorize homocysteine as a risk factor for CAD and to find out the effect of age on homocysteine level.

Materials and Methods: Totally, 100 patients with CAD and 100 normal controls were included in study and homocysteine concentration is measured using standard reagent kit on Abbott AxSYM close system.

Result: 78% of patients in the study group and only 5% of participants in control group have high homocysteine level above biological reference interval, and its concentration was significantly high in study group patients compared to the normal control group participants (33.02 ± 17.41 and 13.88 ± 3.86 respectively, P < 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between homocysteine and age is observed.

Conclusion: Increase homocysteine level may be one of the risk factor of CAD in young age. Homocysteine level is increases with growing age and play a role in the occurrence of CAD.

Key words: Coronary Artery Disease; Homocysteine; Novel Risk Factor