ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
Diabetics were twice as likely to die in the nine years following balloon angioplasty, a common procedure used to treat blocked arteries, a new study said.
Researchers said the results show the need for both extreme caution in using the procedure on diabetics and for further study of follow-up care that might reduce risks.
About 36 percent of diabetics died within nine years after balloon angioplasty, a rate double that of nondiabetics, the study found.
Diabetics also experienced considerably higher rates of heart attacks as well as bypass surgeries and repeat angioplasties, said David Faxon, lead author of the study in today's issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
The study is not the first to find that angioplasty can be risky for diabetics. But it emphasized that problems can appear over several years, not just at the time of the angioplasty, said Faxon, chief of cardiology at the University of Southern California.
``That indicates that maybe we're not following them right,'' he said. ``Maybe we should focus our attention on how we follow up on the procedure, for example, performing exercise testing more frequently in diabetics than in other patients to pick up problems that may not be clinically apparent.''
Further study is needed to determine whether long-term risks to diabetics can be reduced through control of blood sugar, cholesterol and other factors, he said.
Diabetes is a chronic, life-threatening disease caused by the body's inability to convert glucose, a sugar, into usable energy.
During angioplasty, a catheter is inserted into a blood vessel and a small balloon on the tip is inflated to compress the fatty material on artery walls, restoring blood flow. The procedure is riskier for diabetics because their blood tends to clot more readily. Diabetics' arteries also tend to be smaller and more likely to suffer spasms than the vessels of nondiabetics.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB