Myocardial revascularization in diabetic patients

Abstract

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are predisposed to diffuse and rapidly progressing forms of atherosclerosis which significantly increasesthe probabilityof surgical revascularization of myocardium. However, unique pathophysiological features of atherosclerosis in DM patients are responsiblefortheirunusual reaction to an arterial injury associated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).Numerousstudies showed that DM is an independentrisk factor of restenosis following successful balloon angioplasty or stenting of coronary arteries and significantly increases the need forsecondary myocardial revascularization that compromises the outcome of the treatment.Preliminary data indicate that the use of drug-releasing stentsdecreases the need for repeat interventions in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients without negative effect on certain clinical end-points, such asmyocardial infarction and mortality. Any surgical intervention causes less pronouncedimprovement of the clinical picture or prognosis in patients withfunctional class I or II angina of effort compared with optimal medicamental therapy. Surgical revascularization, PCI and aortocoronary bypasssurgery (ACB) is indicated to patients that remain symptomatic despite adequate conservative therapy. The choice of an optimal revascularizationstrategy is of primary importance for DM patients with multiple lesions in the coronary system. Randomized studies comparing multivascularPCI withballoon angioplasty and holometallic stents demonstrated the advantage of ACB for DM patients who showed a higher survival rate, lower frequencyof infarctions and secondary revascularization. Certain authors demonstrated that ACB surpasses PCI even when drug-releasing stents are used.It may be hoped that the ongoing randomized studies comparing the two modalities will help to develop the optimal strategy for myocardial revascularizationindiabetic patients.