Choi SS, et al. Korean Circ J. 2025 Apr;55:e74. https://doi.org/10.4070/kcj.2024.0411

Background: Non-obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) is a disease commonly diagnosed in patients undergoing coronary angiography. However, little is known regarding the long-term clinical impact of multi-vessel non-obstructive CAD. Therefore, the object of this study was to investigate the long-term clinical impact of multi-vessel non-obstructive CAD. Method: A total of 2083 patients without revascularization history and obstructive CAD were enrolled between January 2010 and December 2015. They were classified into four groups according to number of vessels involved in non-obstructive CAD (25% ≤ luminal stenosis < 70%): zero, one, two, or three diseased vessels (DVs). We monitored the patients for 5 years. The primary outcome was major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs), defined as a composite of cardiac death, stroke, and myocardial infarction (MI). Result: The occurrence of MACCEs increased as the number of non-obstructive DVs increased, and was especially high in patients with three DVs. After adjustment, patients with three DVs still showed significantly poorer clinical outcomes of MACCEs, stroke, and MI compared those with zero DVs. Conclusion: Multi-vessel non-obstructive CAD, especially in patients with non-obstructive three DVs, is strongly associated with poor long-term clinical outcomes. This finding suggests that more intensive treatment may be required in this subset of patients.

There are limited data regarding the clinical impact of diabetes duration for patients with heavy calcified coronary lesions. We sought to determine the clinical impact of diabetes duration on clinical outcomes in patients with heavily calcified lesions who required rotational atherectomy during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). A total of 540 diabetic patients (583 lesions) were enrolled between January 2010 and October 2019. Patients were classified into three subgroups: patients with no diabetes mellitus (non-DM), shorter duration (S-DM), and longer duration (L-DM), of which duration was divided at 10 years. During 18 months of follow-up-duration, diabetes duration was significantly associated with the primary outcome. The incidence rate of target-vessel failure (TVF), the primary outcome, was significantly higher in the L-DM group compared with non-DM or S-DM. Among secondary outcomes, any repeat revascularization (RR) was frequently observed in the L-DM compared with other groups. In multivariate analysis, the risk of TVF and any RR was 1.9 times and 2.4 times higher in L-DM than in non-DM, respectively. This study firstly demonstrated that there is an association between a longer DM duration and poor clinical outcomes in patients with severe calcified CAD after PCI. More careful monitoring for recurrence is needed during follow-up in those patients.

Background/Objectives: Diabetes mellitus is a substantial risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). Diabetes duration is linked to clinical outcomes in CAD patients. This study aimed to investigate the impact of diabetes duration on major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular outcomes, as well as all-cause mortality, in Korean patients diagnosed with non-obstructive CAD. Methods: This non-randomized, retrospective, single-center study was based on the medical records of 4287 patients who underwent coronary angiography from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2015. Of these patients, 517 with non-obstructive CAD—defined as 20–49% coronary artery stenosis—were identified and categorized into three groups based on diabetes duration: those without diabetes, those with diabetes for <10 years, and those with diabetes for ≥10 years. Results: Over a median follow-up period of 60 months, the risk of major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) increased nearly fourfold in patients who had non-obstructive CAD and diabetes for ≥10 years compared to those without diabetes, even after adjusting for covariates (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 4.61, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.04–10.40, p < 0.001). The risks of cardiovascular death and non-fatal stroke were also significantly higher in patients who had diabetes for ≥10 years compared to non-diabetic patients (adjusted HR 12.42, 95% CI 2.33–66.22, p = 0.003, adjusted HR 4.97, 95% CI 1.88–13.19, p = 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: Patients with non-obstructive CAD and a longer duration of diabetes exhibited a higher risk of MACCEs. Diabetes duration could be an important factor in predicting mortality in patients with non-obstructive CAD.

Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is an established marker associated with cardiovascular risk, even if it is below the diagnostic threshold for diabetes mellitus (DM). However, whether or not prediabetic and controlled diabetic levels of HbA1c are associated with increased major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) remains unclear. This observational study included a total of 9128 patients who underwent PCI in the COACT registry from eight centers in Korea. A total of 2517 non-DM patients were divided into three groups (Groups I, II, III) according to their HbA1c levels and compared with 965 controlled DM patients (HbA1c < 7.0%, Group IV). During 22 months of median follow-up, there was no significant differences in MACE (p = 0.294) and cardiac death (p = 0.105) among the four groups. In addition, there were also no significant differences in MACE (p = 0.058) between Group III and Group IV. Although patients were diagnosed as DM, they had a similar prognosis in the same range of newly diagnosed DM patients in HbA1c, if they were treated well. The results of this study suggest that intensive treatment is required to reach the Hba1c target in diabetic patients with PCI in order to have a similar prognosis to patients not previously diagnosed with diabetes.

Jung J, et al. J Cardiovasc Interv. 2025 Jan;4(1):29-39. https://doi.org/10.54912/jci.2024.0026