Is Carotid atherosclerosis epidemiology changed among Egyptians?

摘要

In recent times, the health profile in the developing world has changed [1] and there are no accurate national estimates of the prevalence of atherosclerosis diseases. Cardiovascular diseases are now the main cause of death among Egyptians: in 1970 they accounted for 12.4% of all deaths, whereas 2 decades later they were responsible for 42.5% of the mortality [2]. The study by Abd Allah et al. [3] gives new and interesting information about carotid atherosclerosis epidemiology among a large cohort of 4,733 patients in Cairo who underwent extra-cranial carotid duplex scanning during a 5-year follow-up. This study enrolled a wide and unselected population of patients, as you can find in a common division of neurology, with the important advantage of generalizability. The authors found that atherosclerotic carotid artery disease (intima-media thickness and/or plaques) was present in 41% of the study population, but significant and clinically relevant stenosis was detected in only 2.5% of the symptomatic subjects. This study confirms that age, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, smoking and dyslipidemia are independent predictors of carotid atherosclerotic disease.