Evaluation of extent and nature of atherosclerotic plaques of coronary arteries in patients with diabetes mellitus by multislice computed tomography

Diseases of the cardiovascular system are one of the major health and social problems of
modern medicine. Diabetes type 2 is a rapidly growing health and social problem in all industrialized
countries and has early disability and high mortality from cardiovascular complications.
The aim of our work is to evaluate the ability of MSCT in the detection and study of the
prevalence, extent and nature of coronary atherosclerotic plaques in patients with type 2 diabetes,
which do not have diagnosed coronary heart diseases.
Studies carried out in 50 patients with type 2 diabetes (34 men, 16 women) without clinical
manifestations of coronary heart diseases. The average age of the patients was 61,1±7,9 years.
The results show that a higher index of calcifi cation associated with a greater probability
of signifi cant coronary stenosis, whereas the absence of calcifi cations indicative of a very low
probability of coronary heart disease incidence.
Results of the study show that MSCT has large possibilities in identifying and determining
the amount of coronary atherosclerotic plaques in patients with type 2 diabetes. In this particular
group of patients these method may identify a greater number of coronary plaques compared with
conventional angiography.