Angiographic prevalence of myocardial bridging in a defined very large number of Chinese patients with chest pain.
BACKGROUND
Muscle fibers overlying the intramyocardial segment of an epicardial coronary artery are termed myocardial bridging (MB). Variable prevalence of MB has been described at autopsy and angiographic series with small and large sample size studies. In addition, no similar study was reported in Chinese population. The aim of this study was to investigate the angiographic prevalence of MB in consecutive 37,106 Chinese patients with chest pain from our center.


METHODS
We conducted an observational study to evaluate the consecutive cases with MB among patients undergone selective coronary angiography, and analyzed the angiograhic prevalence and clinical features of MB in this study of very large sample size.


RESULTS
Among 37 105 patients with chest pain we found 1002 cases with 1011 MBs in a retrospective manner, and the overall prevalence was 2.70%. Although more than 99% (991/1002) of patients had single bridge, 8 cases were found to have more than two MBs (seven with two, and one with three). Altogether 54.39% of cases (545/1002) had MB without atherosclerotic lesions, and 96.24% (973/1011) of bridging located in the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD), mainly in the middle of LAD (792/1011, 78.33%). According to Nobel classification, of the single bridge (n=991), <50% of obstruction was predominant (471/991, 47.52%). Totally 50%-69% accounted for 34.81% (345/991), >70% of obstruction was 17.65% (175/991).


CONCLUSIONS
These data showed that the prevalence of angiographically detectable MB in Chinese patients with chest pain was similar to those of the previous studies, with 2.7% prevalence in this very large sample size.
Li
Jian-jun
JJ
Department of Cardiology, Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100037, China. lijnjn@yahoo.com.cn
Shang
Zheng-lu
ZL
Yao
Min
M
Li
Jie
J
Yang
Yue-jin
YJ
Chen
Ji-lin
JL
Qiao
Shu-bin
SB
Ma
Wei-hua
WH
Qin
Xue-wen
XW
Liu
Hai-bo
HB
Wu
Yong-jian
YJ
Yuan
Jin-qing
JQ
Chen
Jue
J
You
Shi-Jie
SJ
Dai
Jun
J
Xu
Bo
B
Xia
Ran
R
Gao
Run-lin
RL
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002637:Chest Pain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D054084:Myocardial Bridging / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies