Profile of Cases of Death Due to Coronary Artery Disease: An Autopsy Based Descriptive Study

Background: Most common cause of sudden cardiac death is coronary artery disease, which contributes to 75 to 90%. The present study is undertaken to describe the profile of autopsy cases of coronary artery disease. Methods:Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in all cases of sudden and unexpected death brought for autopsy a tertiary level centre in southern Kerala during a period of one year. Gross and microscopical examination of heart and coronary arteries were studied and in cases with coronary artery disease, associated factors like previous history of illness, personal habits, family history of illness, body mass index, abdominal circumference, horizontal earlobe crease were described in detail. Categorical variables were represented as frequency and percentage, continuous variables as mean and standard deviation and association was tested using Chi square test. Conclusions: Statistically significant association (p value = 0.001) was observed between the horizontal earlobe crease and occlusive coronary artery disease. No significant association was obtained between the obesity parameters like body mass index, waist to hip ratio and occlusive coronary artery disease. Majority of the cases with significant occlusion was observed in the left anterior descending artery.The most common site of thrombus was in the proximal third of left anterior descending artery.