a survey of myocardial infarction in diabetic patients

this is a retrospective study on the records of patients with infarction admitted to c.c.u wards of imam khomeini hospital, amir-alam hospital & shariati hospital, during 7 months (1995-94). in total patients of 209 with average age of 59.5 years, there were 133 men with average age of 57.1 and 76 women with average age of 63.7 years. in this study, women with mi are older than men. from 209 patients with infarction, 51 patients had diabetes, that show diabetes prevalence of 24.4%. on the other side, there were 28 men & 23 women with diabetes, which indicates a prevalence of 21.8% among men and 30.2% among women. thus diabetic women experience infarction more than diabetic men. this result is compatible with classic reports. the average age of diabetic patients is lower than non diabetics. this difference is between diabetic and non diabetic women (58.4 vs 66.1), but there's no difference between diabetic and non diabetic men (58.7 vs 57.7). prevalence of diabetes in sixth & seventh decades has a peak among patients with infarction, and this is compatible with international reports that indicate cad as prominent disease of diabetic patients in sixth and seventh decades. in our study hypertension and hyperlipidemia are the most frequent risk factors together with diabetes in infarction. the duration of disease before infarction was from 5 to 15 years. concerning treatment of diabetic patients we showed that, as most patients in these ages are non insulin-dependant, they had taken oral antidiabetic drugs for long time or without treatment, and fewest were on insulin. chief complaints of our patients were chest pain, epigastric pain, nausea and vomiting, weakness and dyspnea and faint. fourteen percent of men and 30% of women had no chest pain on admission indicating to be careful about other symptoms of old diabetic patients with coronary artery disease.