Diabetic Cardiomyopathy

Diabetic cardiomyopathy is defined as heart failure independent of the coronary artery, valve disease and hypertension. It has multifactorial aetiology but the pathogenesis is incompletely understood. Hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia and inflammation with high oxidative stress lead to structural and functional alterations of the left ventricle (LV) and promote diabetic cardiomyopathy. Diastolic dysfunction is an early sign of diabetic cardiomyopathy. It has a long asymptomatic period, but with time leads to loss of contractile function. Hence, the identification of subclinical diabetic cardiomyopathy and correction of potentially modified risk factors are very important to delay the onset of heart failure. The aim: We aimed to assess the LV function in asymptomatic diabetic patients and its correlation with clinical and biochemical parameters. Study design: Cross-sectional study that includes a total number of 137 subjects. The target group consists of 72 asymptomatic normotensive patients with diabetes mellitus type 2, without coronary artery and valve disease. The control group is composed of 65 healthy subjects. Methods: All patients were subject to echocardiography (conventional 2D, M-mode, PW Doppler analysis and contemporary techniques-TDI and 2D-Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography). We evaluate LV diastolic and systolic function and its correlation with basic clinical characteristics (age, gender, BMI, BSA, waist to hip ratio, duration of diabetes) and biochemical analyses (glucose profile, lipid profile, CRP). The correlation between clinical, biochemical and echocardiographic parameters was assessed by the Pearson Product Moment of Correlation. A p-value of