Background : The strikingly lower prevalence of acute coronary syn­dromes in pre-menopausal women than in men of similar age, then the progressive narrowing of that differ­ence with age after menopause, sug­gests an important role for sex hor­mones and probably oxidative stress in the development of coronary artery disease.
Objective : The aim of this study is to evaluate the sex hormones and ox-idant stress (malondialdehyde, which is a metabolite of lipid peroxidation) and anti-oxidants (vitamin C and E) status in postmenopausal women with stable coronary artery disease and in those with acute coronary syn­dromes,
Subjects & Methods : This study was conducted on 40 non-hormone user postmenopausal women with coronary artery disease. They were divided into 3 groups: the 1^st group (17 patients) who had an acute myo-cardial infarction, the 2^nd group (10 patients) had unstable angina and the 3^rd one (13 patients) had stable angi­na. This is in addition to 20 apparent­ly healthy postmenopausal women of similar age. All cases and control sub­jects were subjected to thorough his­tory taking, full clinical examination, routine laboratory investigations, rest­ing echocardiography and special