Clinical characteristics and results of noninvasive tests in 60 diabetic patients after acute myocardial infarction.

Diabetic patients who survive myocardial infarction have more similarities than differences when compared with nondiabetic patients. Silent myocardial infarctions were not more common in the diabetic population. The higher percentage of women among diabetic patients with infarction has been well recognized. Of the primary risk factors, hypertension was more common in diabetic patients. Clearly, a history of ischemic heart disease was more common in diabetic patients. The course in the coronary care unit was similar for both the diabetic and nondiabetic patient groups. Likewise, there were no striking differences in left ventricular ejection fractions or results of 24-hour Holter monitoring between the groups. The fact that a higher percentage of diabetic patients were excluded from taking the limited activity treadmill test, primarily because of angina after infarction, may account for the observation that the percent of patients with an ischemic response to exercise and the percent with exercise-induced ventricular ectopy did not differ between diabetic and nondiabetic groups.