Correlations Between Heparinated Blood Glucose Determined with Automatic Analyzers and the Severity of the Acute Coronary Disease

Diabetes is one of the most important cardiovascular risk factors. Hyperglycemia leads to several metabolic alterations, thus creating conditions for a poor cardiovascular outcome. Our study phocussed on the prevalence of glucidic metabolism alterations in the acute coronary disease, as well as the association between hyperglycemia, diabetes and severe coronary lesions. We performed a study on 58 patients with acute coronary artery disease, divided in two groups, unstable angina and acute myocardial infarction and we evaluated the severity of the disease based on the angiographical results: no vessel disease (no significant lesions), one-vessel disease (one arterial stenosis/occlusion), two-vessel disease (two stenotic coronary arteries) and three-vessel disease (lesions of all three coronary arteries). Blood samples were collected in heparinated tubes and rapidly transferred to the laboratory for analysis, using automated glucose analyzers, in order to prevent errors due to glycolysis. More than half of the patients were diabetic and glycemic values were significantly higher in patients with myocardial infarction (126.67 vs 163.64 mg/dL). The prevalence of diabetes was significantly higher among the three vessel disease patients, both with unstable angina (38.9%; p=0.037) and with myocardial infarction (35.1%; p=0.345). In conclusion, diabetes and hyperglycemia create the setting for acute coronary disease, especially with lesions of all the three coronary arteries.