Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a major public health problem in Taiwan and is associated with poor outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease. However, the role of DM in outcomes for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has not been clearly defined in Taiwan. This study utilized the Taiwan ACS registry, and characterized the clinical features, risk factors, hospital therapies, hospital outcomes, and events within one year post-discharge to identify the effect of DM on adverse cardiovascular outcomes in ACS patients.
Methods: A total of 3183 patients were enrolled from a Taiwan nationwide registry, from October 2008 to January 2010. We compared these ACS patients with and without DM in terms of baseline demographics, clinical presentation, risk factors, medical treatment, intervention, and outcomes in the following 12 months. The primary endpoint was a composite outcome that included death, re-myocardial infarction and stroke within a 12-month period. The secondary endpoint consisted of the combined results of death, re-myocardial infarction, stroke, re-vascularization, and re-hospitalization over 12 months.
Results: Overall, 2766 (86.8%) ACS patients were analyzed in this study. Of that total, 1000 (36%) of them were diabetes patients. Over the course of one year of follow-up, the DM patients had higher probabilities of all-cause death (10.1% vs. 6.06%, p < 0.05), for both primary outcomes (15.7% vs. 10.93%, p < 0.05) and secondary outcomes (51.6% vs. 42.41%, p < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that patients in the DM group were at a higher risk of all-cause death and the primary outcomes, after adjusting the confounding variables (odds ratio was 1.9 and 1.6 respectively, p < 0.01). For those patients suffering from primary outcomes, the mean survival time was 34.7 ± 10.4 days in the Non-DM group and 33.3 ± 11.8 days in the DM group (p < 0.05). The log rank test showed the two survival curves were significantly distinctive (p < 0.05). Cox regression analysis showed the odds ratio for all-cause death and the primary outcomes were 1.66 and 1.5, respectively (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: Compared to patients without DM, ACS patients with diabetes had significantly worse outcomes in terms of all-cause death and the combined results for death, re-infarction and stroke.
Keywords: Acute coronary syndrome; Diabetes mellitus; Myocardial infarction.