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World J Diabetes. Feb 15, 2015; 6(1): 184-191
Published online Feb 15, 2015. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v6.i1.184
Coronary atherosclerosis is already ongoing in pre-diabetic status: Insight from intravascular imaging modalities
Osamu Kurihara, Masamichi Takano, Yoshihiko Seino, Wataru Shimizu, Kyoichi Mizuno
Osamu Kurihara, Masamichi Takano, Yoshihiko Seino, Cardiovascular Center, Chiba-Hokusoh Hospital, Nippon Medical School, Chiba 270-1694, Japan
Wataru Shimizu, Division of Cardiology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo 173-8605, Japan
Kyoichi Mizuno, Mitsukoshi Health and Welfare Foundation, Tokyo 173-8605, Japan
Conflict-of-interest: None of the authors have any conflict of interest in relation to the work described herein. No financial support was received for the study, nor do any of the authors have relevant relationship with industry.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Masamichi Takano, MD, Cardiovascular Center, Chiba-Hokusoh Hospital, Nippon Medical School, 1715 Kamakari, Inzai, Chiba 270-1694, Japan. takanom@nms.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-476-991111 Fax: +81-476-991908
Received: August 28, 2014
Peer-review started: August 29, 2014
First decision: September 30, 2014
Revised: October 22, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 17, 2014
Published online: February 15, 2015
Processing time: 155 Days and 20.3 Hours
Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a powerful risk factor of coronary artery disease (CAD), leading to death and disability. In recent years, given the accumulating evidence that prediabetes is also related to increasing risk of CAD including cardiovascular events, a new guideline has been proposed for the treatment of blood cholesterol for primary prevention of cardiovascular events. This guideline recommends aggressive lipid-lowering statin therapy for primary prevention in diabetes and other patients. The ultimate goal of patient management is to inhibit progression of systemic atherosclerosis and prevent fatal cardiovascular events such as acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Because disruption of atherosclerotic coronary plaques is a trigger of ACS, the high-risk atheroma is called a vulnerable plaque. Several types of novel diagnostic imaging technologies have been developed for identifying the characteristics of coronary atherosclerosis before the onset of ACS, especially vulnerable plaques. According to coronary angioscopic evaluation, atherosclerosis severity and plaque vulnerability were more advanced in prediabetic than in nondiabetic patients and comparable to that in diabetic patients. In addition, pharmacological intervention by statin therapy changed plaque color and complexity, and the dynamic changes in plaque features are considered plaque stabilization. In this article, we review the findings of atherosclerosis in prediabetes, detected by intravascular imaging modalities, and the therapeutic implications.

Keywords: Diabetes; Prediabetes; Statin therapy; Coronary artery disease; Intravascular imaging modality

Core tip: Coronary artery disease is the principal cause of death and disability in not only diabetes but also prediabetes patients. Aggressive statin therapy is an established method of primary prevention of cardiovascular disease events in diabetic patients. According to the findings of coronary imaging modalities detecting atherosclerotic lesions, statin therapy in prediabetes may be beneficial for reducing atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk.