RESUMEN
This prospective observational study was designed to delineate the course of atherosclerotic disease in a representative group of French patients receiving standard medical care and to look for clinical and laboratory factors predictive of recurrent cardiovascular events. The 2416 study patients (75.2% men and 24.8% women) had diagnoses of peripheral arterial disease (stage II or III), ischemic heart disease (stable angina or myocardial infarction), or cerebrovascular disease (transient ischemic attack or stroke); 2004 patients (82.9%) had only one of these diagnoses, and 412 (17.1%) had more than one. Among patients with a given stage of peripheral arterial disease, mean age was older in the women than in the men. Coronary disease and cerebrovascular disease were more severe in the men. During the 18-month follow-up, 408 cardiovascular events were recorded in 380 patients (15.7% of the overall study group). In patients who had a single clinical event at inclusion, subsequent clinical events usually occurred in the same vascular bed. The incidences of coronary and cerebral events were correlated with age and the incidence of peripheral events with smoking status. Fatal events were correlated with age but not with the baseline diagnosis, except for a weak relationship with peripheral arterial disease. In a subset of 411 patients who had laboratory tests, plasma fibrinogen level was the only independent predictor of recurrence for all cardiovascular events; this parameter was more closely correlated with fatal events than with all events.