Diabetics’ stroke risk post MI has plummeted

September 23, 2013

BY BRUCE JANCIN

AMSTERDAM (IMNG) – The risk of ischemic stroke following an acute myocardial infarction in diabetes patients dropped markedly during a recent 10-year period, according to a nationwide Swedish study.

Indeed, the reduction in ischemic stroke risk during the first year after an MI was significantly larger in diabetic than in nondiabetic patients over the course of a decade, Stina Jakobsson said at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology.

“We believe that the larger risk reduction seen in the diabetic patients may indicate that they have gained more from the increased use of evidence-based secondary preventive treatment,” added Ms. Jakobsson, a medical student at Umea (Sweden) University.

She presented an analysis of all 173,233 patients discharged from Swedish coronary care units after an acute MI during 1998-2008. A total of 19% of them had a previous diagnosis of diabetes.

Among diabetes patients with an MI in 1998-2000, ischemic stroke occurred in 7.1% within 1 year after their coronary event. However, the 1-year ischemic stroke rate in such patients whose MI occurred in 2007-2008 dropped to 4.7%. This was a much more impressive improvement than occurred in the same time span among nondiabetic patients, where the ischemic stroke rate during the first year after an acute MI was 4.2% in 1998-2000, nudging downward to 3.7% in 2007-2008.

Ms. Jakobsson stressed that there is definitely room for improvement in the use of reperfusion therapy and secondary preventive medications among diabetes patients with an MI. Although the use of these key interventions increased over time in both diabetic and nondiabetic MI patients, rates still remained lower in the diabetic group in the most recent study years.

The 4.7% 1-year incidence of ischemic stroke among Swedish diabetes patients with an acute MI in 2007-2008 was significantly greater than the 3.7% rate among nondiabetic patients. Moreover, even among patients on optimized secondary prevention therapies, the ischemic stroke rate was higher in the diabetic group. That’s not surprising because they more often had a history of prior cardiovascular disease at the time of their acute MI.

“They were sicker to start with,” Ms. Jakobsson observed.

The most powerful predictors of increased risk of ischemic stroke post MI included older age, atrial fibrillation, an ST-elevation MI, and prior ischemic stroke.

This study was supported by Swedish governmental research funds. Ms. Jakobsson reported having no financial conflicts of interest.