Abnormal echocardiography in patients with type 2 diabetes and relation to symptoms and clinical characteristics

Abstract

Objectives: We aimed to determine the prevalence of echocardiographic abnormalities and their relation to clinical characteristics and cardiac symptoms in a large, contemporary cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes. Results: A total of 1030 patients with type 2 diabetes participated. Echocardiographic abnormalities were present in 513 (49.8%) patients, mainly driven by a high prevalence of diastolic dysfunction 178 (19.4%), left ventricular hypertrophy 213 (21.0%) and left atrial enlargement, 200 (19.6%). The prevalence increased markedly with age from 31.1% in the youngest group (<55 years) to 73.9% in the oldest group (>75 years) ( p < 0.001) and was equally distributed among the sexes ( p = 0.76). In univariate analyses, electrocardiographic abnormalities, age, body mass index, known coronary heart disease, hypertension, albuminuria, diabetes duration and creatinine were associated with abnormal echocardiography along with dyspnoea and characteristic chest pain ( p < 0.05 for all). Neither of the cardiac symptoms nor clinical characteristics had sufficient sensitivity and specificity to accurately identify patients with abnormal echocardiography. Conclusion: Echocardiographic abnormalities are very common in outpatients with type 2 diabetes, but neither cardiac symptoms nor clinical characteristics are effective to identify patients with echocardiographic abnormalities.