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Is there any difference in carotid stenosis between male and female patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting?

^a Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece
^b Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece
^c Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece

*Corresponding author. Bouboulinas 34, Ioannina, 45445 Greece. Tel.: +2651099681; fax: +2651099677.

E-mail address: ssiminel{at}yahoo.com (S. Siminelakis).

Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of death in women. Significant gender differences have been reported among patients with symptomatic carotid artery disease. The aim of this study is to examine if the female sex is a predisposing factor for carotid stenosis in coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) patients. We studied 965 CABG patients, 796 males and 169 females. We combined the gender with risk factors predicting carotid disease as a history of cerebrovascular accident (CVA), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), left main (LM) disease and advanced age. We compared the incidence of carotid disease for each gender against known risk factors, which are history of CVA, PVD, LM and advanced age. In our study, there was not a statistically significant difference for the presence of carotid disease between males and females undergoing CABG. However, patients with a history of CVA, with PVD and older age were at greater risk for carotid stenosis. We conclude that the female sex is not a predictive factor for carotid stenosis in CABG patients.

Key Words: Coronary disease; Cerebral protection; Peripheral Vascular; Myocardial protection