Relation between Baseline Coronary Atherosclerotic Status, Cardiovascular Events, and Malignancies in Type 2 Diabetics: A Long-Term Prospective Cohort Study.
INTRODUCTION
Coronary artery disease and malignancy occur more frequently in patients with type 2 diabetes. They may share inflammation as a possible common pathogenetic mechanism, but it is unclear whether a clinical correlation exists between them.


METHODS
This prospective cohort study followed 735 asymptomatic diabetics, aged 63.4 ± 5.3 years (mean ± standard deviation) for 12.2 ± 0.6 years after baseline coronary artery calcium scoring and cardiac computed tomography angiography. We examined extent and nature of coronary atherosclerosis and incidence of clinical cardiovascular (CV) events (death or myocardial infarction) and sought a relation to incidence of malignancy and malignancy mortality.


RESULTS
Total mortality was 16.5% (121/735 patients): malignancy was cause of death in 48/121 (39.7%) of these and CV events in 44/121 (36.3%). There was no relation between extent of coronary atherosclerosis and incident malignancy (plaque volume 127 [21, 427] mm3 (median [interquartile range]) for incident malignancy versus 153 [24, 427] mm3 no malignancy, p = 0.71) or death from malignancy (plaque volume 176 [26, 646] versus 144 [22, 411] mm3, p = 0.32). There was also no relation between presence of high-risk plaque and incident malignancy (high-risk plaque in 27.1% with malignancy vs. 21.6% without, p = 0.18) or fatal malignancy (p = 0.16). Incident and fatal malignancy were not related to clinical CV events. Independent predictors of incident and fatal malignancy were age, smoking at baseline, and elevated C-reactive protein.


CONCLUSION
This study found no relation between extent of coronary atherosclerosis or incidence of CV events and malignancy. Malignancy surpassed CV disease as the commonest long-term cause of mortality in middle-aged and older diabetics.
['Azencot|Mali|M|', 'Lewis|Basil S|BS|', 'Halon|David A|DA|']
D000368:Aged D000072226:Computed Tomography Angiography D017023:Coronary Angiography D003324:Coronary Artery Disease D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 D006801:Humans D008875:Middle Aged D009203:Myocardial Infarction D009369:Neoplasms D058226:Plaque, Atherosclerotic D011446:Prospective Studies D018570:Risk Assessment D012307:Risk Factors
Malignancy Coronary artery disease Cancer Diabetes mellitus