OBJECTIVE -Elevation of blood glucose is a common metabolic disorder among patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and is associated with adverse prognosis. However, few data are available concerning the long-term prognostic value of elevated fasting glucose during the acute phase of infarction.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -We prospectively studied the relationship between fasting glucose and long-term mortality in patients with AMI. Fasting glucose was determined after an Ն8 h fast within 24 h of admission. The median duration of follow-up was 24 months (range 6 -48). All multivariable Cox models were adjusted for the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) risk score.RESULTS -In nondiabetic patients (n ϭ 1,101), compared with patients with normal fasting glucose (Ͻ100 mg/dl), the adjusted hazard ratio for mortality progressively increased with higher tertiles of elevated fasting glucose (first tertile 1.5 [95% CI 0.8 -2.9], P ϭ 0.19; second tertile 3.2 [1.9 -5.5], P Ͻ 0.0001; third tertile 5.7 [3.5-9.3], P Ͻ 0.0001). The c statistic of the model containing the GRACE risk score increased when fasting glucose data were added (0.8 Ϯ 0.02-0.85 Ϯ 0.02, P ϭ 0.004). Fasting glucose remained an independent predictor of mortality after further adjustment for ejection fraction. Elevated fasting glucose did not predict mortality in patients with diabetes (n ϭ 462).CONCLUSIONS -Fasting glucose is a simple robust tool for predicting long-term mortality in nondiabetic patients with AMI. Fasting glucose provides incremental prognostic information when added to the GRACE risk score and left ventricular ejection fraction. Fasting glucose is not a useful prognostic marker in patients with diabetes.
Diabetes Care 30:960 -966, 2007R ecent studies have emphasized the prognostic value of high blood glucose levels in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (1-6). Previous investigations focused on the relationship between random blood glucose on admission and outcome. We have previously shown that elevated fasting glucose concentrations are superior to admission glucose levels in predicting 30-day mortality in patients with AMI (7). However, few data on the relationship between fasting glucose and long-term outcome are available.Knowledge of mortality predictors in AMI can be used to generate predictive models that can aid clinicians' decisions making, in particular in identifying patients who are at high or low risk of death (8). Such risk assessment methods have been developed for acute coronary syndromes (9 -11). Whether glucose levels can be used to improve the predictive ability of such risk models is not known.Heart failure has been shown to promote insulin resistance and glucose intolerance (12,13), raising the possibility that the association between stress hyperglycemia and adverse outcome is partly mediated through the acute reduction in left ventricular systolic performance. However, the relationship between infarct size or left ventricular dysfunction and the degree of stress hyperglycemia remains...