Association between coronary artery atherosclerosis and plasma glucose levels assessed by dual-source computed tomography

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are at an increased risk for the development of coronary artery disease (CAD) (1,2), and CAD is the principal cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetic adults (3,4). The study of Rivera et al. (5) demonstrated a higher prevalence of CAD in asymptomatic patients with diabetes than in non-diabetic subjects using cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTA). Using multi-detector CTA, Yang et al. (6) showed an association between hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and subclinical coronary artery atherosclerosis (CAA) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). They suggested that long-term stabilization of blood glucose levels could be important in preventing the progression of subclinical CAA during the early phase of T2DM (6)