Percutaneous coronary angioplasty in diabetic patients: new prospects with drug-eluting stents

peer reviewedCoronary revascularization procedures are associated with less favourable outcomes in diabetic patients as compared to non-diabetic individuals. Especially, percutaneous coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is associated with a high level of restenosis and recurrent cardiac morbidity and mortality. In diabetic patients, PTCA should ideally be combined with stents. Bare-metal stents reduce by almost half the risk of restenosis, but this favourable effect decreases with the vessel calibre, a common finding in diabetic patients. Drug-eluting stents containing pharmacological agents that can reduce the risk of restenosis (sirolimus, paclitaxel) provide better angiographic results, including in small coronary arteries, and this effect has been shown to be accompanied by significant reduction of both morbidity and mortality. Such preliminary results obtained in the general population (including around 20% of diabetic subjects) deserve further confirmation in a large clinical trial specifically devoted to diabetic patients. Drug-eluting stents may represent a major advance in the management of diabetic patients with coronary heart disease in the near future