Comparison of Coronary Flow Reserve and Fractional Flow Reserve in Patients With Versus Without Diabetes Mellitus and Having Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and Abciximab Therapy (from the PREDICT Trial)

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) have poor long-term outcome after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) partly because of microvascular disease and distal embolization. Microvascular obstruction can be assessed by measuring coronary flow reserve (CFR). The Prediction of CK-MB RElease During Successful Stenting Correlating with Indicators of Microvascular ObstruCTion (PREDICT) trial compared the CFR in patients with versus without DM during PCI. Patients undergoing elective PCI were prospectively enrolled according to diabetic (n = 36) and nondiabetic (n = 36) status. All patients received drug-eluting stent with abciximab and were followed for 30-day major adverse cardiac events. CFR and FFR (fractional flow reserve) before and after stenting were measured before and after intracoronary adenosine bolus. Procedural success, MB enzyme of creatine-kinase (CK-MB), troponin I, and high-sensitive C-reactive protein elevation, vascular complications, and major adverse cardiac events were not different. FFR before stenting was 0.77 ± 0.03 in patients with DM versus 0.76 ± 0.02 in patients without DM (p = 0.69). FFR after stenting was 0.97 ± 0.03 and 0.99 ± 0.01 (p = 0.26), respectively. CFR before stenting was 1.36 ± 0.31 in patients with DM versus 1.49 ± 0.25 in patients without DM (p = 0.064). However, CFR after stenting was significantly lower in patients with versus without DM (1.89 ± 0.30 versus 2.44 ± 0.67, p <0.001, respectively). CFR after stenting only moderately correlated with CK-MB and high-sensitive C-reactive protein after PCI but did not correlate with 30-day major adverse cardiac events. In conclusion, patients with DM have significantly lower CFR after stenting despite equivalent FFR and myonecrosis compared with patients without DM, indicating greater microvascular obstruction after PCI despite abciximab.