Risk of Stroke in Diabetic Patients after a Myocardial Infarction

A decreased risk in stroke post-MI is seen among diabetic patients over a 10-year span…. 

According to a new study, the risk of a stroke after an acute myocardial infarction has decreased in patients with diabetes over a 10-year span. The study covered 173,233 patients registered in the Swedish Register of Information and Knowledge about Swedish Heart Intensive Care Admissions (RIKS-HIA) in the years 1998-2008.

The reason for the decline in stroke rates post MI has been attributed to reperfusion interventions and drugs used for secondary prevention. Within the 10 year period patient records were studied, 19% of the patients in the study had a diagnosis of diabetes and of those patients, 5.5% experienced an ischemic stroke within a year after having a MI. This stroke rate was found to be not much different from the 3.5% stroke rate patients without diabetes in the study were associated with.

Overall, a decline in stroke rate was shown among diabetic patients over the 10 years because in 1998-2000 the rate went from being 7.1% to 4.7% during the year 2007-2008. A smaller decrease in stroke rate was seen among patients without diabetes in the study.

Patients with diabetes who had an acute MI and who were then treated with coronary angioplasty and received secondary preventive medications including a statin, acetylsalicylic acid, and a P2Y12-inhibitor were most associated with a decline in stroke rate.

According to the lead author of the study, Stina Jakobsson, "The larger reduction in stroke risk seen in diabetic patients may indicate that they gained more from the greater use of secondary preventive medication. But secondary preventive treatments are still underutilized in diabetic patients and there is room for increased use."

Presented at European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2013. Abstract 3514. Presented September 2, 2013.