Aims: The beneficial effect of specific measures in patients with newly detected diabetes during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has been poorly studied. Here, we determined the prevalence of newly detected diabetes in a cohort of patients who underwent PCI and analysed their clinical outcome.
Methods and results: A prospective study included patients without previous diagnosis of diabetes that were referred for PCI between November 2005 and May 2006. Major cardiac events were registered after admission and during 12 months of follow-up, and oral glucose tolerance was tested at 15 days after hospital discharge. Six hundred and sixty-two consecutive patients were referred to our hospital for PCI. The distribution of the glycometabolic state of the entire population was (95% CI): known diabetes 28.8% (25.2-32.6), newly detected diabetes 16.2% (13.1-19.8), impaired glucose tolerance 24.5% (20.8-28.5), impaired fasting glucose 1% (0.4-2.4), and normal glucose regulation 29.5% (25.5-33.7). In a multivariable analysis, the presence of newly detected diabetes was not an independent predictor of cardiac events after 1 year of follow-up.
Conclusion: The prevalence of diabetes in patients who underwent PCI was very high (45%), 35% of which was patients with newly detected diabetes. In our series newly detected diabetes was not an independent predictor of outcome at 12 months. Nevertheless, this finding requires independent confirmation in other series to draw general conclusions on the whole spectrum of percutaneous interventions.