1981 Volume 18 Issue 5 Pages 319-324
The present study aimed to clarify the relationship between the anual incidence of cerebro-cardiovascular diseases and the clinical variables such as blood pressure, electrocardiographic findings, fundoscopic findings, serum cholesterol levels and the pulse wave velocity (P. W. V.). Where the cerebro-cardiovasccular diseases were cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, transient ischemic attack, subarachnoid hemorrhage, myocardial infarction and angina pectoris. The subjects studied were the 68, 684 citizens without the diseases stated above. We knew the development of the diseases by the reply postal cards and verified it by telephoning to the patients or their doctors.
The PWV method permits the estimation of the degree of aortic sclerosis in non-invasive manner. The PWV as measured by this method is 6-7m/sec for an intact aorta, and more than 9m/sec for highly sclerotic aorta. A detailed report on this subject was made by Yoshimura and Hasegawa.
Out of 68, 684 citizens, 198 subjects were confirmed to have the diseases, after one year. The incidences of each disease were as follows; 64 subjects (33%) developed cerebral infaction; 50 (25%) developed angina pectoris; 36 (18%) developed myocardial infarction; 24 (12%) developed transient ischemic attack; 14 (7%) developed cerebral hemorrhage; and 10 (5%) developed subarachnoid hemorrhage.
The mean values of systolic pressure (mmHg) were 148 (132) in the forties, 154 (139) in the fifties, 157 (147) in the sixties and 160 (154) in the seventies in the group with the diseases. Where the values in the brackes are the mean values in the group without the diseases. The mean values of diastolic pressure were 87 (77), 88 (80), 86 (82), and 84 (82) from the forties to seventies. The serum cholesterol levels (mg/dl) were 218 (192), 210 (196), 203 (196) and 202 (195) respectively. The PWV values (m/sec) were 8.0 (7.5), 8.5 (8.0), 9.2 (8.7) and (9.4).
All clinical variables showed higher levels or higher incidence of abnormal findings in the group with the diseases than in the group without the diseases. The clinical variables which significantly associated with the development of the particular diseases were as follows; serum cholesterol and ischemic heart disease; systolic blood pressure and cerebral hemorrhage; PWV and transient ischemic attack, cerebral hemorrhage and infarction; electrocardiographic abnormality and ischemic heart disease and cerebral hemorrhage. The incidence rates of abnormal fundoscopic finding were the same among all these diseases.
We would like to propose that PWV is a usefull method for the multivariate analysis of the risks of these cerebrocardiovascular diseases, as well as the conventional clinical variables.
