The present study was designed to develop criteria for screening patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for asymptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD).
A total of 213 patients with T2DM without typical angina or chest pain were studied between 2002 and 2007. We also evaluated 53 patients with T2DM who had reported chest discomfort using an exercise treadmill test (ETT).
Thirty-one of the 213 asymptomatic patients had positive ETT results. We performed coronary angiography on 23 of the 31 patients with a positive ETT and found that 11 of them had significant coronary stenosis. The main differences between the patients with significant stenosis and those with a negative ETT were age (63.1±9.4 vs. 53.7±10.1 years,
In the interest of cost-effectiveness, screening for asymptomatic CAD could be limited to elderly patients with a duration of diabetes ≥10 years.
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