3.4.4 – Gender
It was noted that most studies which recorded gender had a disparate gender ratio between the case and control groups (Table 1). This is partly explained as female patients have a lower prevalence of coronary artery disease and are therefore more likely to be in the control group however only Kamal et al gender matched each group(4). Although there was a reported increased prevalence of DELC and CAD in male patients in most studies, only one study (17) looked at the odds ratio for both genders independently and found that women had a greater association between DELC and CAD (Female OR 6.368 95% CI 2.961 to 13.694 vs Male OR 5.420 95% CI 2.804 to 10.477). No other studies reported results in sufficient detail to allow comparison with this study.