Correlation of type and extent of atherosclerosis in aorta and coronary arteries obtained at autopsy. The search for predictors of coronary stenosis and myocardial infarction.

In the course of a research project on atherosclerosis, an international group of pathologists studied lesions in the aorta and coronary arteries obtained at autopsy from 3174 subjects from Czechoslovakia, Sweden and the USSR in an effort to determine what factors, recognizable in life, might be used to predict the presence of coronary stenosis or myocardial infarction.Corrected correlation coefficients have been calculated for 406 pairs of factors representing the types and site of lesions in a subject. Some 31 pairs of factors have been found to correlate highly, and the optimal discrimination between those who had and had not coronary stenosis or myocardial infarction was given by a combination of calcification in the left anterior descending coronary artery, heart weight and age. On the other hand, subcutaneous fat thickness was not associated with stenosis or infarction, and calcification in the aorta and height contributed little to the prediction of these conditions.