Objective To investigate the correlations between TCM syndromes of coronary heart disease and body mass index(BMI), blood lipid levels as well as coronary CT angiography(CTA) manifestations in cardiac patients.
Methods Retrospective analysis was performed in TCM syndromes of coronary heart disease, BMI, blood lipid levels and manifestations of coronary CTA in 153 patients. The relationships between different syndromes and BMI, blood lipid level, degree of coronary artery stenosis and the number of diseased coronary branches were analyzed.
Results Compared with patients with other syndromes, there were significant differences in BMI values of patients with phlegm obstruction of heart arteries (P < 0.01). There were also significant differences in BMI values among patients with stagnation of the heart blood syndrome and qi stagnation and blood stasis syndrome, syndrome of yin deficiency in heart and kidney(P < 0.01). The levels of TG and LDL-C in phlegm-obstructing heart vein syndrome and heart-blood stasis syndrome were higher than those in other syndromes(P < 0.01). Patients with heart-blood stasis syndrome and qi deficiency and blood stasis syndrome were mainly characterized by severe stenosis, and those with phlegm-obstructing heart veins and heart-blood stasis syndrome were mainly characterized by multi-vessel disease, and most of them had severe disease. Patients with heart-kidney yin deficiency syndrome were mainly characterized by single-vessel disease, and such patients had mild disease.
Conclusion The TCM syndromes of coronary heart disease are closely related to the number of diseased coronary branches and the severity of coronary stenosis manifested by coronary CTA, BMI and blood lipid levels. The results of coronary CTA examination, BMI and blood lipid levels can be considered as objective indexes for syndrome differentiation in patients with obstruction of qi in the chest.