The incidence of myocardial bridge in Manisa with coronary angiography and the assessment of the location and lenght of the tunneled segment in patients with myocardial bridges

Myocardial bridging (MB) is a congenital anomaly where a segment of a major epicardial coronary artery is running intramurally through the myocardium. A large discrepancy exists between pathological series, in which the incidence has varied from 15% to 85% and angiographic series, in which it is reported as being between 0,51% and 2,5% The aim of the study was to investigate the angiographic prevalence of myocardial bridging in 7058 patients from Manisa region.Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 7058 patients undergoing coronary angiography to evaluate the angiographic prevalence of myocardial bridging in a large sample size.The correlation between the severity of the bridging and risk factors for coronary artery disease was also evaluated.Results: Among 7058 patients we found 347 cases of myocardial bridging in a retrospective manner. The total prevalence of MB was 3,3% in our series. Although, 96% of patients with myocardial bridging had the tunnelled segment in the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) as expected, the rate of occurrence of the bridges on the D1-D2 segments and on the distal part of the D2 segment were nearly (39,2% and 55,3%, respectively). In our study, the mean degree of systolic compression given as a percentage was % 62,7 and mean length of the tunnelled segment was 27,7 mm.We subclassified the patients in two groups, Group A (<50% of systolic compression) and Group B (?50% of systolic compression), according to the amount of systolic compression of LAD. In these patients we studied correlation between the severity of the myocardial bridging and risk factors for coronary artery disease. Another subclassification was also made for patients having myocardial bridging with or without coronary artery disease; Group 1 (<50% of systolic compression) and Group 2 (?50% of systolic compression). we evaluated the correlation between the severity of the myocardial bridging and risk factors for coronary artery disease among these two groups. The prevalence of bridges in circumflex and right coronary arteries individually and in all arteries as combination was also studied.Conclusion: In a large group of patients from Manisa undergoing selective coronary artery angiography, the angiographic prevalence of myocardial bridging was nearly as expected from previous studies. No correlation could be found between the risk factors for coronary artery disease among the groups representing <50% of systolic compression (Group A and 1) than in groups representing ?50% of systolic compression (Group B and 2).