Diagnosis of coronary microvascualar dysfunction in diabetic patients with cardiac syndrome X: comparison by current methods

Abstract

The study population included 208 patients with chest pain and uninjured coronary arteries that we split into two populations: diabetics (72 patients) and non-diabetics (136 patients). We split patients with chest pain and uninjured coronary arteries that had a myocardial scintigraphy into two populations: patients with positive scintigraphy and negative. We calculated, on angiographic images of each patient, stored on suitable digital supports, Timi Frame Count (TFC), Myocardial Blush Grade (MBG) and Total Myocardial Blush Score (TMBS) using the protocol described by Gibson and Yusuf. On the basis of Yusuf's experience we imagined a new index: the Total Timi Frame Count as the sum of the three coronary Timi Frame Count. From our results we found a worse coronary microcirculation in diabetic patients with lower values of TFC, MBG and TMBS (p=0.02),compared with non- diabetics. New index TTFC is usually higher in diabetics than non-diabetic patients. Patients with positive scintigraphy had a worse TMBS than patients with a negative one, with a high statistical significance (p=0.003).We focused on the correlation between scintigraphy defect and angiography data in the arteries of ischemia relieved by nuclear imaging. The analysis showed that healthy vessels had a lower TFC than diseased vessels and therefore a better microcirculation with a high statistical significance (p=0.0001). According to the literature, diabetic population has a major microcirculation disease; moreover the study of microcirculation by coronary angiography and myocardial scintigraphy shows a good correlation between two methods.