title: Prognostic value of pharmacological stress echocardiography in diabetic and nondiabetic patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We sought to compare the prognostic value of pharmacological stress echocardiography (SE) in diabetic and nondiabetic patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Although SE is a useful tool for risk stratification of patients with diabetes, it has not been established whether it retains the same prognostic information in diabetic patients compared with nondiabetic patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 5,456 patients (749 diabetics) undergoing dipyridamole (n = 3,306) or dobutamine (n = 2,150) SE were prospectively followed up for the occurrence of hard events (death and/or nonfatal myocardial infarction).
  
  
  RESULTS
  During a median time of 31 months, 411 deaths and 236 infarctions occurred. There were 132 events in diabetic patients and 515 in nondiabetic patients (18% vs. 11%, respectively; p < 0.0001). Moreover, 1,607 (29%) patients underwent coronary revascularization and were censored. Ischemia at SE, resting wall motion score index, and age were independent predictors of death and hard events in both diabetic and nondiabetic patients. Compared with a normal test, ischemia and scar test patterns were associated to significantly lower age-corrected five-year hard event-free survival in diabetic as well as nondiabetic patients. However, a normal test was associated with a greater than two-fold annual event rate in diabetic patients as compared with nondiabetics who were either younger (2.6% vs. 1.0%) or older (5.5% vs. 2.2%) than 65 years of age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stress echocardiography is equally effective in risk stratifying diabetic and nondiabetic patients independently of age. However, the normal test result predicts a less favorable outcome in diabetic than in nondiabetic patients.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Lucca Hospital, Lucca, Italy. lacortig@tin.it
authors.forename: Lauro
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cortigiani
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bigi
authors.forename: Rosa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sicari
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Landi
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bovenzi
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Picano
mesh_terms: D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000628:therapy; D048909:Diabetes Complications; D004176:Dipyridamole; D004280:Dobutamine; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: D004280:Dobutamine; D004176:Dipyridamole