Risk factors for atherosclerosis: ultrasound evaluation of carotid and femoral arteries in patients examined by coronary angiography.

The carotid and femoral arteries of 209 subjects (161 men and 48 women), consecutively tested by coronary angiography during the first four months of 1990, were examined using a B-Mode Echo-doppler. The angiographic examination was performed for suspected ischemic disease or to complement hemodynamic tests for valvular cardiopathy. The relationship between the main risk factors and the degree of atherosclerotic vascular involvement in the coronary, carotid and femoral districts was examined using standardised partial correlation coefficients. Cigarette smoke (expressed as number of cigarettes per day or as duration of exposure to smoke), total blood cholesterol concentration and age were positively correlated with the degree of atherosclerotic involvement in all three vascular regions; triglyceridemia values were correlated only in the coronary region. These relations were observed both in patients below and above 65 years of age; in the elderly group no correlation was found between blood cholesterol concentration and coronary involvement and between triglycerides levels and atherosclerotic disease in the three districts. Our results suggest that some risk factors (high blood cholesterol concentration and history of smoking) correlate with severity of atherosclerotic involvement even in advanced age.