Electrocardiographic Analysis of Patients with Suspicion of Acute Coronary Syndrome in Yaounde, Cameroon

Abstract

Background: Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. IHD was thought to be an extremely rare occurrence in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the increasing economic development with changes in lifestyle has led to an increase in IHD risk factors which has motivated the interest of our study. Objectives: The aim was to study a group of patients with suspicion of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), in order to determine those with and without electrocardiographic diagnosis of ACS. Methods: It was an observational cross-sectional descriptive study over a period of six months, which included concerned patients who presented with retrosternal or precordial chest pain of onset being less than two weeks with at least one cardiovascular risk factor, in the cardiology units of three reference hospitals in Yaounde. Ethical clearance and authorizations were obtained from the competent authorities. We used a preformed questionnaire to obtain information from the patients concerning the demographic data, clinical presentation and electrocardiographic findings. Results: We recruited 100 patients with suspicion of ACS. 56 patients presented with electrocardiographic diagnosis of ACS and 44 patients did not. The mean age was 60.6 ± 11.5 years with age limits of 32 - 85 years in patients with ACS and 55.3 ± 16.6 years with age limits of 19 - 90 years in patients without ACS. The predominant age group was 60 - 69 years in both groups. The sex ratio (male/female) was 0.6 in patients with ACS and 0.7 in patients without ACS. The main complaints presented in both groups were; chest pain, fatigue, dyspnea and palpitation. The frequent cardiovascular risk factors in both groups were hypertension, age and overweight/obesity. In patients with ACS, 55.4% presented with ST-segment elevated acute coronary syndrome (STE-ACS) and 44.6% presented with non-ST-segment elevated acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS). The Antero-Septal territory represented 77.4% of patients with STE-ACS and the lateral territory represented 56.0% of patients with NSTE-ACS. Conclusion: This study shows that 56.0% of patients with suspicion of ACS had an electrocardiographic diagnosis of ACS. Further studies should be undertaken to determine the prevalence of ACS in our community.