Percutaneous coronary intervention is an alternative to CABG for patients with medically refractory myocardial ischemia and a high risk of adverse outcomes with CABG.

AN analysis has been made of the family histories of a survey of 1280 cases of IDDM entering Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh between December 31, 1964 and January 1, 1981, discharged on insulin and initial age of onset under 17 yr. Family histories revealed an increased occurrence of IDDM among relatives in the affected families. The risk to siblings was estimated by age-corrected proband exclusion (3.3%) by age 20 and by the Li-Mantel segregation ratio estimator (6.0%). The comparison of these risk measures is discussed. The occurrence of IDDM among the parents is 2.6% and of NIDDM among the parents is 2.4%. A comparison of risk to relatives (parents, sibs, uncles, half-sibs) observed in the Pittsburgh Study to those of six other studies reveal essentially equivalent rates. There is no increased risk to siblings of a diabetic who had an early age of onset. There is an increased risk to siblings of a diabetic (10.5%) in families where at least one parent has insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and also an increased risk to siblings of a diabetic (8.8%) when at least one parent has non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM). The average age of onset for second cases in a family is significantly older than age of onset in single case families.

Aims/hypothesis: The goals of this study were to determine whether coronary calcium is associated with the presence of clinical cardiovascular disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes and if the measurement of abdominal aortic calcium may have an independent or added benefit as a surrogate marker for clinical vascular disease. Methods: A cross-sectional study of subjects with type 2 diabetes enrolled in seven medical centres in the USA participating in a Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study of glycaemic control. Enrolled subjects included 309 veterans over 40 years of age with type 2 diabetes, with or without stable cardiovascular disease, who had inadequate glycaemic control (HbA 1 c>7.5%) on oral agents and/or insulin. The study assessed lifestyle behaviours, standard cardiovascular risk factors and coronary artery and abdominal aorta calcification by electron beam computed tomography. Results: Subjects with coronary artery or abdominal aorta calcification present had a strikingly higher prevalence of peripheral artery disease, coronary artery disease and all combined cardiovascular disease. Prevalence of each condition increased from 5-to 13-fold with increasing quintiles of coronary artery calcification and from 2-to 3-fold with increasing abdominal aorta calcification. These associations persisted after adjustment for lifestyle behaviours and standard cardiovascular risk factors. Conclusions/ interpretation: These results support the notion that vascular calcium in type 2 diabetes provides additional information beyond that of standard risk factors in identifying the presence of cardiovascular disease. Subclinical measures of atherosclerosis such as arterial calcification may help more precisely stratify these individuals and alert healthcare providers to those individuals who have particularly accelerated atherosclerosis.

Percutaneous coronary intervention is preferable to CABG for many post-CABG patients.

In addition to many well-known associations with retinopathy, a higher frequency of severe diabetic retinopathy was found in the Hispanic and African-American patients at entry into the VADT that is not accounted for by traditional risk factors for diabetic retinopathy, and these substantial ethnic differences remain to be explained.