Assessment of coronary artery disease by thallium scan in type-1 diabetic uremic patients awaiting combined pancreas and renal transplantation.

Twenty-five type-1 diabetic uremic patients (14 men, 11 women, mean age forty +/- eleven years, range, nineteen to sixty) were prospectively analyzed for coronary artery disease (CAD) by thallium scan (TLS) before synchronus pancreas and kidney transplantation. Duration of diabetes ranged from ten to thirty-two years (mean twenty-two +/- five). Fifteen patients (60%) were in dialysis from two to sixty months (mean twenty +/- eighteen). Advanced diabetic degenerative complications were present in all patients. Twenty exercise and five pharmacologic thallium scans were performed. Forty-four percent of patients (6 men, 5 women, mean age forty-two +/- eleven years, range, twenty-six to sixty) had a positive (reversible or permanent defects) TLS. In 2/11 cases, severe CAD required further cardiac investigations for therapeutic management decision. A statistical correlation with resting ECG nonspecific ST-segment and T-wave abnormalities was observed (p less than 0.05) despite the absence of angor in 8 of the 11 patients. On the contrary, no statistical correlations were found regarding high blood pressure, smoking, hypercholesterolemia, duration of diabetes, and duration of dialysis. In this particular diabetic population (young age, male/female ratio = 1.2) with high incidence of silent ischemia, resting ECG repolarization abnormalities, though predictive, were not specific or prognostic of CAD severity; in these cases, exercise and pharmacologic TLS, a noninvasive and sensitive cardiovascular test, may be of great interest in diagnosis of CAD, allowing adequate cardiac management before, during, and after pancreas transplantation.