Introduction:

In our country, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death among women.

Objective:

To identify early atherosclerotic signs in middle aged women with a history of pre-eclampsia.

Method:

An observational descriptive study was carried out with 108 women aged 45-59 years old, at the Policlínico Docente Chiqui Gómez Lubián, in Santa Clara (Cuba), over the years 2017 and 2018. The study group was made up of 54 women who had a history of pre-eclampsia in the last decade while the control group comprised the same number of women with no history of pre-eclampsia.

Results:

The most prevalent risk factor in the total number of women studied was the combination of overweight and obesity (75%); this subgroup comprised 98.1% of those with a history of pre-eclampsia. It was followed in frequency by hypercholesterolemia (71.3%), high blood pressure (54.6%), smoking (51.8%) and diabetes mellitus (38.9%). The 92.6% of women with a history of pre-eclampsia were hypertensive and all had an abdominal circumference ≥ 88 cm. Furthermore, all those with moderate, high or very high cardiovascular risk had a history of pre-eclampsia, and of the total number of women with low cardiovascular risk, only 22 (28.9%) had such a background; as the rest (71.1%) accounted for the total number of women without pre-eclampsia.

Conclusions:

Early atherosclerotic signs: obesity, abdominal circumference greater than 88 cm and high blood pressure, as well as atherogenic risk factors associated with moderate, high and very high cardiovascular risk predominated in women with pre-eclampsia.

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