Large brachial artery diameter is associated with angiographic coronary artery disease in women.

Background: Noninvasive methods are needed for the identification of women at highest risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) who might benefit most from aggressive preventive therapy. Identification of brachial artery atherosclerosis, which correlates with coronary artery atherosclerosis, may be useful to estimate or stratify CAD risk. Because atherosclerosis disrupts the arterial architecture that regulates vessel size, we hypothesized that noninvasively measured large brachial artery diameter is a manifestation of atherosclerosis that is associated with angiographic CAD in women with chest pain.