Disparity in frequency of normal coronary artery in black and white patients undergoing cardiac catheterization.

Background: Normal epicardial coronary arteries (NCA) based on angiography have been reported to occur more frequently in Blacks than in Whites, but these studies have suffered from the limitation of being retrospective, reporting on relatively small numbers of subjects, or lacking a systematic angiogram interpretation.

Methods And Results: Angiograms of 560 consecutive patients (226 Black and 334 White) enrolled in the Harlem-Bassett Study were reviewed. The presence of coronary artery disease risk factors was documented.