Objectives: We performed this study to evaluate the impacts of atherosclerosis risk factors on several atherosclerotic surrogates especially in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), who had already abnormal parameters of atherosclerosis surrogates. Methods and Results: Study subjects were consisted of 140 patients (mean age; 60.7 yrs, 85 males) with significant CAD (³50% stenosed in at least 1 major coronary artery) out of 286 consecutive patients underwent coronary angiography. There were no significant differences between hypertensive (n=80) and normotensive group (n=60) in terms of age, sex, blood chemistry, diabetes mellitus, smoking, hyperlipidemia, ejection fraction, clinical diagnosis, and angiographic findings, except systolic blood pressure (124.9 ± 17.3 vs 116.8 ± 15.7 mmHg, p=0.011) and diastolic blood pressure (74.6 ± 10.7 vs 70.8 ± 9.2 mmHg, p=0.021) Hypertensive group showed more increased arterial stiffness (8.5 ± 0.9 m/sec vs 7.9 ± 1.2 m/sec, p=0.005), which was measured of pulse wave velocity (PWV) of lower extremity, than normotensive group. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and endothelial function using high-resolution ultrasound showed no significant differences between two groups. Furthermore, these surrogates did not show significant differences according to the presence of diabetes mellitus, smoking, and hyperlipidemia. Multivariate analysis revealed that hypertension is still the only independent factor of arterial stiffness out of atherosclerosis risk factors in study patients. Conclusions: Hypertension is the only independent factor of arterial stiffness, but not of carotid IMT and endothelial function, in patients with significant CAD, although other risk factors did not associated with the differences of these surrogates.
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