Is anemia an independent predictor of occurrence of acute coronary syndrome? Results from the modares heart study.

The authors sought to investigate whether an increase or decrease of hemoglobin (Hgb) and hematocrit (Hct) levels were a predictor of occurrence of acute coronary syndrome. This retrospective case-control study included 594 myocardial infarction (MI) patients, 596 unstable angina patients, and 590 controls who were hospitalized from 1994 to 2005. Results show that prevalence of MI based on Hgb and Hct levels in anemic patients was 17.9% and 14.0%, respectively, and in patients with high levels in the normal range was 8.8% and 20.2%, respectively. A logistic regression between MI patients and controls showed that the odds ratio and 95% confidence interval of MI for patients with low vs high Hgb and mean corpuscular volume were 0.215 (0.112-0.412) and 0.368 (0.243-0.558), respectively. Anemia was an independent predictor of occurrence of acute coronary syndrome based on Hgb, while, based on Hct, both anemia and high Hct level were predictors of occurrence of MI.