March 13, 2006

Stenting Options In Diabetics

People with heart disease who also have diabetes pose specific challenges in treatment options due to the nature of their disease. A late-breaking clinical study presented today during the American College of Cardiology's inaugural Innovation in Intervention: the i2 Summit explores the outcomes of using two different types of drug-eluting stents in diabetics treated for heart disease. Innovation in Intervention: i2 Summit is an annual meeting for practicing cardiovascular interventionalists sponsored by the American College of Cardiology in partnership with the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.
Head-to-head studies have shown that drug-eluting stents infused with medicine to keep the artery from re-narrowing perform better than bare metal stents in patients treated for coronary artery disease. A 2005 study by Dr. Charles Simonton showed similar outcomes in the general population of patients for the two types of medicated stents currently being used in the United States.

Dr. Simonton and the STENT Group of eight coronary intervention centers have examined how the sirolimus-eluting (SES) and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) performed in patients with diabetes. The STENT Group is the first prospective, consecutive, multi-center registry for drug-eluting stents in the U.S., which began enrollment in May 2003. More than 80 percent of all interventions are enrolled at the eight sites, with nine-month clinical follow-up achieved in 94 percent of patients.

A total of 1,680 diabetic patients undergoing either pure PES or pure SES procedures (i.e. no other vessels treated with other devices) were enrolled and completed nine-month follow up. Of the 498 insulin-treated diabetic patients, 235 received PES and 263 received SES. Of the remaining non-insulin-treated diabetic patients (1,182 pts), 570 received PES and 612 received SES. While PES-treated patients more frequently had high-risk or longer lesions and vessels smaller than 3 mm, baseline assessments were otherwise similar for both groups.

Nine-month follow up showed that the PES and SES stents resulted in similar outcomes in all of the diabetic patients. Major adverse cardiac events (MACE) were low, but researchers noticed for insulin-treated diabetes, PES treatment resulted in fewer adverse event rates than SES treatment. Specifically, PES was associated with reduced rates of death (2.1 percent vs. 5.7 percent), heart attack (1.3 percent vs. 1.9 percent), restenosis or renarrowing of the artery (3.4 percent vs. 4.2 percent) and overall MACE (5.9 percent vs. 10.6 percent). After adjusting for the differences in the two stent groups, the relative chance of a MACE event in the insulin-treated group was 52 percent lower for the PES patients than the SES patients. All differences between PES and SES were not statistically significant.

Source

JoAnn      

Do You Read All Of Our Cancer Blogs?

Do you read all of the blogs published by medicineworld.org? Many of our bloggers are busy keeping you updated on the various health related topics. We publish the following blogs at this time.

Cancer blog: I manage the cancer blog with lots of help and support form other bloggers. Through this cancer blog my friends and I try to bring stories of hope for patients with cancer. The cancer blog often republishes important blog posts from other cancer related blogs at Medicineworld.org. If you are searching for a blog that covers wide variety of cancer topics, this may be the one for you.

Breast cancer blog: Breast cancer blog is run by Emily and other bloggers and they bring you the latest stories, news and events that are related to breast cancer. Increasing awareness about breast cancer among women and in the general population is the main goal of this breast cancer blog.

Lung cancer blog: Lung cancer blog is managed by Scott with the help of other bloggers. Through this blog Scott and his friends constantly remind the readers about the dangers of smoking. It's a never-ending struggle against this miserable disease with which a social stigma of smoking is associated.

Colon cancer blog: Colon cancer blog is run by Sue and other bloggers. Sue brings a personal touch to the colon cancer blog since her mother died of colon cancer few years ago. She writes about stories, research news and advances in treatment related to colon cancer.

Prostate cancer blog: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among American men. American Cancer Society estimates that over 230,000 new cases of prostate cancer occur in the United state every year. This important blog about prostate cancer is run by Mark and other bloggers. This blog brings news, stories, and other personal observations related to prostate cancer.

Medicineworld.org publishes a diabetes watch blog and this blog is run by JoAnn other bloggers. This diabetes watch blog brings you the latest in the field of diabetes. This includes personal stories, advances in diagnosis and treatment, and other observations about diabetes. Improving awareness about diabetes is an important mission of this group.

Janet      

Type-2 Diabetes
Type-2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for 90% of cases diabetes. This disease affects nearly 17 million Americans and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Even though 17 million Americans have type-2 diabetes only half of these people are aware that they have diabetes. The death rate in patients with diabetes may be up to 11 times higher than in persons without the disease. The occurrence of diabetes in persons 45 to 64 years of age is 7 percent, but the proportion increases significantly in persons 65 years of age or older. Type-2 diabetes accounts for more than 90% of all diabetes worldwide.