[Current status and perspectives of coronary imaging for patients with diabetes mellitus].

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an independent and distinct risk factor of ischemic heart disease. Therefore, early identification and management of coronary atherosclerosis for patients with DM is being desired. For the purpose of visualizing coronary atherosclerosis, various imaging modalities have been proposed especially to identify an unstable plaque that has a thin fibrous cap and a large lipid core. These modalities include intravascular ultrasound, coronary angioscopy, intracoronary thermography, optical coherence tomography, multi-slice CT, MRI, and so on. The development of these modalities are now pushing all cardiologists to get interested in a new field called as "plaque imaging".