Faster degeneration of bioprosthetic valves in diabetics

A study involving twelve centers between 1988 and 2009 by Lorusso R et al [Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Is Associated With Faster Degeneration of Bioprosthetic Valve
Results From a Propensity Score–Matched Italian Multicenter Study. Circulation.
2012; 125: 604-614] has found that bioprosthetic valves degenerate faster in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. There were about six thousand and two hundred patients the database analyzed, of which over one thousand and seven hundred were having type 2 diabetes mellitus. Propensity score matching algorithm was used to match 1113 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with the same number of those without diabetes mellitus. The one month mortality was 7.8 percent in diabetics while it was only 2.9 percent in the non diabetics. Seven year freedom from valve deterioration was 95.4 percent in the non diabetics while its was only 73.2 percent in diabetics. Diabetes mellitus was found to be the strongest predictor for structural valve degeneration with a hazard ratio of 2.39. This association was found even after adjusting for other important risk factors.