Low plasma Chromium in patients with coronary artery and heart diseases.

Plasma chromium concentrations have been determined for 150 patients. These were subjected to coronary artery cineangiography and thereby divided into three groups: group CAD (those with coronary artery disease), group HD (those with heart disease, but no CAD) and group N (those with no CAD and no HD). Weighted, average chromium levels for these groups were 1.05, 1.72, and 8.51 ng/mL, respectively. The distributions of plasma chromium levels for the three groups suggest that an upper limit for plasma chromium may be established (6 ng/mL in this work) beyond which CAD may be considered to be extremely unlikely, thus eliminating the need for a certain number of cineangiographic examinations.