3.4.3 Age
In studies which reported a mean age there was good comparison between
case and control groups (Table 1). Ten of the studies looked at the
association with age either by looking at different age cohorts or by
performing multivariate regression analysis. Of these ten, four studies
looking at cohorts found a significant association between DELC and CAD
in all age brackets investigated(5, 6, 12, 18) whilst
four(11, 13, 16, 17) using multivariate regression
analysis found that DELC was independently and significantly associated
with CAD when compared with age. Only two studies(14,
15) suggested that DELC was directly due to age and they provided no
statistical analysis to support their view. Of the four studies which
looked at different age cohorts, only one(6) provided
enough detail to look at the diagnostic odds ratio for different 10 year
age cohorts. There was no obvious pattern with the ratios although the
DOR was greatest in the youngest cohort (<40yo) and smallest
in the oldest cohort (>70yo).