Two‐hundred thirty‐four residents (220 male, 14 female) of a Veterans Administration Nursing Home and a Hospital Based Home Care program, 24–99 years old (mean 66), were examined for the presence (or absence) of earlobe creases and their correlation with cardiovascular disease. Unilateral or bilateral earlobe creases were found in 119 patients (55 unilateral, 64 bilateral), or 50.85 per cent. One hundred forty‐two patients had one or more forms of cardiovascular disease: 20 had coronary artery disease, 45 had cerebrovascular disease, 12 had peripheral vascular disease, 48 had atherosclerotic heart disease and/or hypertension, and 17 had “other” cardiovascular disease, mostly congestive heart failure. Seventy‐three of them (51.4 per cent) had earlobe creases. The rest—92 patients—had no clinically apparent cardiovascular disease, and the incidence of earlobe creases in this group was 50 per cent.
Cross‐tabulation (chi square) and multivariate (stepwise logistic) regression analyses relating the presence (or absence) of earlobe creases to diagnosis, age, sex, smoking, body weight, height, blood pressure, serum cholesterol, glucose, urea nitrogen, creatinine, uric acid, calcium, phosphorus, albumin, and hemoglobin revealed no significant correlation between the presence of earlobe creases and any of the above parameters. Earlobe creases were present in about half the study group regardless of diagnosis, and only about half the patients with cardiovascular and coronary artery disease had earlobe creases.
It was concluded that in our patient population earlobe creases were not specifically associated with cardiovascular disease, as they were associated about equally with both cardiovascular and noncardiovascular disease. Their significance in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease may be greater in a younger age group, because in the elderly these creases may occur as part of skin aging, and they may also accompany noncardiovascular diseases.