Coronary artery disease in blacks of lower socioeconomic status: angiographic findings from the Cook County Hospital Heart Disease Registry.

During a 4-year period, 1,022 blacks underwent angiography at our institution for the presumptive diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). Among the 454 men, at least one coronary stenosis was demonstrated in 288 cases (63%), while significant narrowing was found in 242 of 568 women (43%). Despite the frequent finding of normal coronary arteries, those patients with significant CAD had severe disease. Thus among men with CAD, left main stenosis was present in 7% and three-vessel narrowing was seen in 53%; among the women, 8% had left main stenosis and three-vessel disease was present in 52%. Two countervailing processes appear to be occurring, namely (1) identification of true coronary symptoms is difficult in this group of patients and (2) diagnosis of true cases occurs late in the course of the disease and the distribution of the number of vessels involved is skewed upwards. Increased echocardiographically determined left ventricular mass and hypertension were prevalent among all groups. These data suggest that the approach to the diagnosis of CAD in the black population is difficult and severe CAD occurs frequently.