BACKGROUND: Diabetic patients are at high risk of recurrent coronary events. Drug eluting stents (DES) reduce restenosis and target lesion revascularization in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients. However, there are limited data on the long-term safety and efficacy of DES in diabetic patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the long-term clinical outcome in this high risk population. METHOD: From May 2002 to April 2007, all patients undergoing coronary intervention with DES in two hospitals were included in the study and were followed-up for up to 5 years. RESULTS: A total of 611 patients with mean age of 63.5 ± 11.2 years were included in the registry. Diabetic patients (n = 204, 33.4%) included a smaller proportion of males, greater prevalence of hypertension, chronic renal failure, and smaller coronary reference diameter when compared to non-diabetic patients. During the follow-up, diabetics had a higher probability of combined adverse cardiac events (19.7% vs. 13.4%; P = 0.04), as a result of death (7.4% vs. 2.3%; P = 0.003), acute myocardial infarction (5.9% vs. 3.1%; P = 0.10) and definitive/probable stent thrombosis (3.9% vs. 1.3%; P = 0.04). Target vessel and target lesion revascularization, however, were not different between the groups (10.9% vs. 9.8%; P = 0.68 and 3.4% vs. 5.1%; P= 0.35, respectively). The presence of diabetes mellitus was an independent predictor of death [odds ratio (OR) 2.41; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.02-5.78; P = 0.05) but not of stent thrombosis (OR 2.41; 95% CI 0.76-7.61; P = 0.13) in our patients. CONCLUSIONS: The outcomes of this study show that in patients undergoing DES implantation, the presence of diabetes was associated to higher mortality rates, acute myocardial infarction and stent thrombosis when compared to non-diabetics. The finding of similar target lesion revascularization rates in diabetic and non-diabetic patients is promising and suggests the efficacy of percutaneous revascularization with DES implantation in this population.
Diabetes mellitus; Drug-eluting stents; Coronary restenosis; Follow-up studies
