Analysis of Risk Factors in Patients with Subclinical Atherosclerosis and Increased Cardiovascular Risk Using Factor Analysis

Abstract

Today, there are many parameters used for cardiovascular risk quantification and to identify many of the high-risk subjects; however, many of them do not reflect reality. Modern personalized medicine is the key to fast and effective diagnostics and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. One step towards this goal is a better understanding of connections between numerous risk factors. We used Factor analysis to identify a suitable number of factors on observed data about patients hospitalized in the East Slovak Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Košice. The data describes 808 participants cross-identifying symptomatic and coronarography resulting characteristics. We created several clusters of factors. The most significant cluster of factors identified six factors: basic characteristics of the patient; renal parameters and fibrinogen; family predisposition to CVD; personal history of CVD; lifestyle of the patient; and echo and ECG examination results. The factor analysis results confirmed the known findings and recommendations related to CVD. The derivation of new facts concerning the risk factors of CVD will be of interest to further research, focusing, among other things, on explanatory methods.