Correlation between blood stasis syndrome and pathological characteristics of coronary artery in patients with coronary heart disease

OBJECTIVE: To study the correlation of blood stasis syndrome or its accompanied syndromes with Gensini score in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) in stable condition. METHODS: The syndrome types of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and blood stasis score in 131 CHD patients confirmed by coronary angiography were recorded. Gensini score was calculated according to the coronary pathological characteristics showed by angiography. The correlations of blood stasis syndrome and its accompanied syndromes with coronary lesion and Gensini score were analyzed. RESULTS: Among the TCM syndrome types, blood stasis, turbid phlegm and qi deficiency were the most common syndromes, revealed in 85 patients (64.9%), 83 patients (63.4%) and 85 patients (64.9%), respectively. The coronary lesion length and Gensini score in the patients with blood stasis syndrome were much higher than those in the patients with non-blood stasis syndrome (P<0.05 or P<0.01). In the subtypes of blood stasis, the coronary lesion length and Gensini score in the patients with blood stasis accompanied by turbid phlegm syndrome were higher than those in the patients with non-blood stasis syndrome (P<0.05). And in the patients whose blood stasis syndrome score was more than 9 points, the coronary lesion length was higher than that in the patients whose blood stasis syndrome score was less than 9 points (P<0.05). Besides, with bivariate analysis, the blood stasis syndrome score showed no correlation with Gensini score (Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.104, P=0.241). CONCLUSION: Blood stasis syndrome is the most common TCM syndrome in CHD patients in stable condition. The blood stasis syndrome score is proportional to coronary lesion length, and reflects the severity of coronary lesion.