• Giuseppe Coppola, Egle Corrado, Ida Muratori, Rosalba Tantillo, Giustina Vitale, L Lo Coco, and Salvatore Novo.
• Department of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular and Nephro-Urological Diseases, University of Palermo, Chair of Cardiovascular Disease, Palermo, Italy. koppolus@libero.it
• Int. J. Cardiol. 2006 Jan 4;106(1):16-20.

AimTo evaluate the predictive role of hs-CRP and fibrinogen for cardio- and cerebrovascular events in a population of patients with type 2 diabetes.MethodsWe studied 156 patients with type 2 diabetes, mean age 66+10 years, and 156 sex and age matched control subjects. Patients underwent physical examination, EKG, measurement of body mass index and blood pressure. A blood sample was drawn to evaluate glycaemia, total and HDL/LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), fibrinogen. Finally, patients underwent an ecocolordoppler examination of the common carotid arteries until the bifurcation. In a follow-up of 5+/-1.2 years we evaluated the following events: transient ischemic attack, ischemic stroke, stable or unstable angina, acute myocardial infarction, critical limb ischemia and cardiovascular death.ResultsDuring the follow-up the prevalence of fatal (p<0.05) and non fatal events (p<0.0001) was higher in patients with diabetes in comparison with controls. The variables independently associated with non fatal events were: fibrinogen (p<0.0001), presence of asymptomatic carotid lesion (p<0.005), obesity (p<0.05) and plasma levels of hs-CRP (p<0.05), while fibrinogen (p<0.001) and age were (p<0.05) independently associated with fatal events.ConclusionOur data show that in patients with diabetes mellitus, that in the follow-up the presence of high plasma levels of hs-CRP and fibrinogen are predictive for fatal or non fatal events.

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