Microvascular angina in diabetic patients with uninjured coronary arteries

• Published in: Central European journal of medicine 2012-12, Vol.7 (6), p.823-828
• Main Authors: Sucato, Vincenzo, Evola, Salvatore, Triolo, Oreste Fabio, Trovato, Rosaria Linda, Pace, Giuliana, Quagliana, Angelo, Magro, Serena, Tona, Giuseppe Riccardo, Novo, Giuseppina, Novo, Salvatore
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomedicine; Chest pain; Coronary angiography; Diabetes mellitus; Internal Medicine; Maternal and Child Health; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Microcirculation; Myocardial scintigraphy; Reproductive Medicine; Research Article; Surgery
• ISSN: 1895-1058; 2391-5463; 1644-3640; 2391-5463
• DOI: 10.2478/s11536-012-0070-4

Aims The study aims at the evaluation, of patients with chest pain and uninjured coronary arteries, and the impact of diabetes mellitus on coronary microcirculation. Moreover we want to verify whether a correlation between myocardial scintigraphy results and coronary angiography or not. Methods The study population included 316 patients (173 males,143 females) with uninjured coronary arteries. Patients with chest pain (208) were divided into two populations: diabetics (72) and non-diabetics (136).We compared 66 patients with a myocardial scintigraphy with results of angiographic indexes. On angiographic images we evaluated, on the three major epicardial, Gibson’s indexes (TFC, MBG), the Yusuf’s index(TMBS) and a new index: Total Timi Frame Count (TTFC). Results Patients with positive scintigraphy had a worse TMBS than patients with negative scintigraphy (p=0.003) and a lower TFC of healthy vessels than diseased vessels (p=0.0001). We found a worse coronary microcirculation in diabetic patients with lower values of MBG and TMBS (p=0.02),compared with non- diabetics. New index TTFC is usually higher in diabetics than non-diabetic patients. Conclusion The study of microcirculation by coronary angiography and myocardial scintigraphy shows a good correlation between two methods. The analysis of diabetic patients and non-diabetic with chest pain and uninjured coronary arteries has led to assess that diabetic population has a major microcirculation disease.