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Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM), particularly if insulin-dependent, is a predictor of increased perioperative risk, whereas stringent metabolic control with insulin is beneficial in the critically ill. Methods: The impact of oral hypoglycemics (OH) vs. insulin on outcome was determined as a secondary retrospective analysis of a cohort study in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and DM undergoing major non-cardiac surgery. Primary end-point was 2-year all-cause mortality; secondary endpoints were perioperative myocardial ischemia and 2-year cardiac mortality. Results: Of 173 patients, DM was diagnosed in 42 (24%) based on pre-existing treatment with OH (15%) or insulin (9%). During follow-up, 40/173 (23%) patients died. All-cause mortality was similar in the non-diabetic (20%) and insulin groups (19%) but significantly higher in the OH group (42%; p = 0.025). Cardiac mortality tended to be higher in the OH group compared with the insulin and non-diabetic groups (27 vs. 19% and 11%, respectively; p = 0.066). Multivariate analysis revealed renal failure (odds ratio [OR] = 4.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.8–13.0), treatment with OH (OR = 3.3, 95% CI = 1.2–9.0), peripheral vascular surgery (OR = 2.7, 95% CI = 1.2–6.0), and prior diuretic therapy (OR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.1–5.7) being independently associated with 2-year all-cause death. No difference existed in postoperative ischemia among the different groups. Conclusions: Long-term mortality after major non-cardiac surgery is elevated in patients with CAD and diabetes mellitus only if they are treated with OH, but not if they are treated with insulin. Further evaluation of the impact of perioperative anti-diabetic treatment on morbidity and mortality in CAD is warranted. Copyright © 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the hypothesis that the preload-adjusted maximal power index (PA-PWRmax) is a load-independent index of human myocardial contractility. Based on the ventricular pressure-volume relationship and derived from stroke work, the index is the product of instantaneous ventricular pressure and volume changes, divided by a correction term of end-diastolic volume (EDV2) or end-diastolic area (EDA3/2) to adjust for preload effects. Echocardiographic measures of instantaneous ventricular area change may be used to obtain PA-PWRmax noninvasively. We prospectively evaluated 28 human subjects undergoing cardiac evacuation before cardiopulmonary bypass procedures. Continuous peripheral arterial pressure, pulmonary arterial pressure, and echocardiographic views of the left ventricle in the transgastric short-axis view were recorded. Simultaneously gated instantaneous fractional shortening (FS) and PA-PWRmax indices were calculated, with FS = (EDA – ESA)/EDA and PA-PWRmax = [MAP (EDA – ESA)]/ EDA3/2, where ESA = end-systolic area and MAP = instantaneous mean arterial pressure. FS decreased uniformly with cardiac evacuation and decreasing pulmonary artery diastolic pressure (t = –5.4; 95% confidence interval, –10 to –0.046; p < 0.001), as did PA-PWRmax (t = –5.8; 95% confidence interval, –2.25 to –1.08; p < 0.001). FS and PA-PWRmax showed a strong downward correlation (r = 0.81). Unlike previous studies of autonomically denervated animals, our study did not find PA-PWRmax to be preload independent, perhaps because of the instantaneous homeostatic mechanisms of the human autonomic nervous system linking contractility to loading conditions. Copyright © 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]