Causes of death of diabetic patients in the past 10 years and their ECG findings.
We investigated the causes of death of 98 subjects with diabetes mellitus over the past 10 years at our hospital. As was expected, the cause with the highest incidence (48.0%) was vascular disease including cerebral vascular disease (20.4%), coronary heart disease (15.3%), aortic disease and miscellaneous (3.1%), followed by malignant tumors (39.8%), infectious diseases (4.1%) and other diseases. Only one patient died from diabetic coma. The abnormal ECG findings of these patients were analyzed according to the Minnesota Code and 57%, 31%, 26%, 24%, 19% of them showed arrhythmias, ST-T abnormalities, LVH, VPC, and abnormal Q-wave, respectively. These findings showed no statistical difference between diabetics and non-diabetics. Abnormal p-wave, especially LA-load was found more often in diabetics (35%) than in non-diabetics (21%). Q-T interval corrected by Bazett's formula (Q-Tc) was 430 +/- 3.03 (M +/- SEM) msec in diabetics and it was significantly longer (p less than 0.01) than 417 +/- 3.73 msec in patients with other diseases.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000401:mortality*; D003925:Diabetic Angiopathies / Q000401:mortality; D003928:Diabetic Nephropathies / Q000401:mortality; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged