Background: Coronary Artery Disease is one of the most important causes of disability and death. Microalbuminuria is a biomarker that has been related to cardiovascular risk.^1,2 Microalbuminuria is defined as urine albumin between 30-300 mg/24 hours or urine albumin creatinine ratio between 30-300 mg/gm creatinine.

Objective: To determine whether microalbuminuria can be used as a predictor of severity of Coronary Artery Disease in patients with chronic stable angina.

Methods: All patients admitted for elective coronary angiography, included. Detailed medical history and thorough clinical examination done. Microalbuminuria detected on the basis of spot urine albumin creatinine ratio. Sample size calculated to be 88. Subjects divided into two equal groups, group A with  Urine albumin creatinine ratio less than 30mg/dl and group B with more than 30 mg/dl. All patients underwent coronary angiography and severity of coronary artery disease calculated using SYNTAX scoring system.

Results: Both groups did not show statistically significant difference in the distribution of variables like age (p=0.122), sex (p=0.286), smoking (p=0.503), systemic hypertension (p=0.135) and dyslipidemia (p=0.165). There was a higher distribution of diabetes mellitus in the group with microalbuminuria (p=0.03). No statistically significant association was obtained between microalbuminuria and severity of coronary artery disease (p=0.08).

Conclusion: According to this study, there is no evidence to suggest that microalbuminuria could be a predictor for severity of coronary artery disease in chronic stable angina.

Keywords: coronary artery disease, chronic stable angina, microalbuminuria.

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Anil Kumar CR

Associate Professor, Dept of Medicine, JMMCRI, Thrissur