Early (≤ 30 Days), Late (31–360 Days) and Very Late (> 360 Days) Stent Thrombosis in Patients with Insulin-Treated versus Non-Insulin-Treated Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis

INTRODUCTION: At this time in 2018, with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and coronary artery disease (CAD) still on the rise, the post-percutaneous coronary interventional (PCI) outcomes observed in patients with diabetes mellitus who are on insulin therapy (ITDM) and those who do not require insulin (NITDM) are still controversial and require further investigation. Considering this idea to be of particular interest to the readers, as well as being an important issue in interventional cardiology, we aimed to systematically assess early (≤ 30 days), late (31–360 days) and very late (> 360 days) stent thrombosis in patients with ITDM and NITDM following drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. METHODS: Well-known online databases (the Cochrane, EMBASE and MEDLINE databases and http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov) were searched for relevant English publications based on ITDM and NITDM and stent thrombosis following PCI using specific terms. Early stent thrombosis, late stent thrombosis and very late stent thrombosis were the clinical outcomes. The main analysis was carried out using the latest version of the RevMan software (version 5.3) whereby odds ratios (OR), and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were generated. RESULTS: A total of 8524 participants with T2DM (2273 participants were on insulin therapy and 6251 participants were not) were included. Results of this analysis showed early stent thrombosis to be significantly higher in patients with ITDM (OR 1.81, 95% CI 1.04–3.15; P = 0.04), whereas late and very late stent thromboses were not significantly different following PCI with DES in diabetic patients with versus without insulin therapy (OR 1.44, 95% CI 0.73–2.84, P = 0.30 and OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.33–1.92, P = 0.62, respectively). Late stent thromboses associated exclusively with everolimus-eluting stents (EES) and paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) were not significantly different in patients with ITDM and NITDM. CONCLUSION: Following PCI with DES, early stent thrombosis was significantly higher in patients with ITDM. However, late and very late stent thromboses were not significantly different in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who were treated with or without insulin. Comparison with individual DES was not sufficiently powerful to reach a conclusion.