Abstract

ROMERO SILVA, Jesús et al. Repercusión cardiovascular de la diabetes mellitus de tipo II: estudio postmortem. Gac Méd Caracas [online]. 2006, vol.114, n.2, pp.118-131. ISSN 0367-4762.

Diabetes mellitus has become a world health problem and it has been considered as complicated as cardiovascular disease. The objective of this investigation is to describe the anatomo- pathological characteristics of the diabetic heart, specifically oriented to the coronary atherosclerosis and diabetic cardiomyopathy. The hearts obtained at autopsy of 30 patients with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, both diseases and normals, were examined macroscopically and histochemically, and the results compared between them. The hearts of the diabetic population had "cardiomegalia" with a cardiac weigh between 400 and 450 g, with remodeling concentric of left ventricular hypertrophy predominant (11/20). In the myocardium of both ventricles (n = 40) the following was observed: interstitial fibrosis and hypertrophy of the myocardial cells (100 %), glycoprotein infiltration (19/40); adipose infiltration (26/40); the small vessels coronary abnormalities in the capillaries (16/40), arterioles (33/40) and venules (9/40). From the diabetics all the mayors coronaries (n = 90) presented atherosclerotic lesions, dominating of type V, eccentric plaques, with positive remodeled and higher percent grades of luminal stenosis. It was concluded that the changes found, as seen on other published cases in numerous international studies, are unspecific and in none of the cases met the criteria of the diabetic cardiomyopathy. More systematic studies of the diabetic myocardium in experimental and technical application of observation such as immunohistochemical and ultrastructural investigations are recommended in order to understand the structural changes that could characterize that myocardium disease.

Keywords : Diabetes mellitus; Hypertension; Cardiomyopathy; Atherosclerosis.