Carotid Intima Medial Thickness as A Surrogate Marker for Systemic Atherosclerosis in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Background: The objective was to measure the correlation between carotid intima medial thickness (CIMT) with duration of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and its correlation with biochemical markers and body mass index (BMI). Methods: The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata. Total 100 patients were selected randomly who met the inclusion criteria. Among total patients, 20 cases were newly detected type 2 DM patients and 80 were cases of established diabetes, with different duration of DM. CIMT was measured by carotid artery ultrasonography using an echo tomography system having midfrequency of 7.5MhZ and detection limit of 0.1mm. Duration of diabetes was measured as present age minus age of detection of DM. BMI was measured by the guideline of WHO. The parameters were estimated such as microalbuminuria by radioimmunoassay, fasting blood sugar (FBS) level and HbA1C by HPLC method, uric acid by uricase method. Data was collected using a predetermined proforma and statistical analyses were done. Results: Duration of DM was positively correlated with CIMT and association was statistically significant (P<0.02). There was increase in CCA-IMT and ICA-IMT across increasing level of FBS and HbA1c (P<0.01). Microalbuminuria is considered a novel atherosclerotic risk factor, was found significantly associated with mean CIMT (P<0.001). CIMT was also significantly associated with HbA1C (P<0.001). The significantly (P<0.01) increased level of uric acid indicated higher carotid plaque. Conclusion: CIMT is an objective measure of subclinical atherosclerosis, which is a non- invasive, less expensive, duration and reproducible way of demonstrating subclinical atherosclerosis. Thus, it can serve as a window for atherosclerosis status in other major arteries like coronary artery and cerebral arteries. The CIMT is closely associated with several markers viz. uric acid, blood sugar, HbA1c, albumin and BMI during the progression of type 2 DM.