Can Echocardiography Improve Outcomes in Type 2 Diabetes?

TOPLINE:

Echocardiography was associated with survival time and readmission in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Moreover, it was positively correlated with survival time in patients with T2D without complications.

METHODOLOGY:

• Previous studies have shown that echocardiography can improve prognosis in various conditions, but its relationship with T2D prognosis hasn’t been well studied.
• Researchers used the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-IV diabetes database to explore the relationship between echocardiography and prognosis in patients with T2D.
• The main variable was the decision whether to use echocardiography or not. A 1:1 propensity score matching for age, body mass index, sex, race, and marital status was used.
• After propensity matching, the study included 9140 adult patients diagnosed with T2D and hospitalized for 2 days or more.
• Indicators of prognosis were survival time, length of stay, intensive care unit readmission, readmission, and death.

TAKEAWAY:

• Echocardiography was independently associated with survival time (β = 31.216; P = .004) and readmission rates (odds ratio, 0.794; P = .004) in patients with T2D.
• No independent association was found between echocardiography and length of stay.
• Echocardiography was associated with survival time only in patients with T2D without complications (adjusted β = 53.846; P = .001).
• After adjusting for all confounding factors, no correlation was found between echocardiography and readmission rates in patients with T2D with or without complications.

IN PRACTICE:

“Echocardiography was independently related to survival time and readmission rates in T2D patients, which suggested that echocardiography affected the prognosis,” the authors wrote. These findings indicate that patients with T2D should undergo echocardiography, according to the authors.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Zhi Jiang of the First Hospital of Longyan, Longyan, China. It was published online in PLOS One.

LIMITATIONS:

Specific echocardiography indicators were not analyzed owing to database constraints. The sample size of patients with complications was small. Additionally, the study did not compare outcomes between patients and healthy individuals.

DISCLOSURES:

No specific funding was received for this study. The authors declared having no competing interests.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.