Does pharmacologic treatment in patients with established coronary artery disease and diabetes fulfil guideline recommended targets? A report from the EUROASPIRE III cross-sectional study

The aim was to investigate the use of cardioprotective drug therapies (aspirin or other antiplatelet agents, β-blockade, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system-blockade (RAAS-blockade) and statins) and treatment targets achieved in a large cohort of patients with established coronary artery disease and diabetes across Europe.

EUROASPIRE III is an observational cross-sectional study of stable coronary artery disease patients aged 18–80 years from 76 centres in 22 European countries conducted in 2006–2007. The glycaemic status (prevalent, incident or no diabetes), the guideline treatment targets achieved and the use of pharmacotherapies were assessed at one visit 6-36 months after the index event. Of all 6588 patients investigated (women 25%), 4295 (65%) had no diabetes, 752 (11%) had incident diabetes and 1541 (23%) had prevalent diabetes. All four drugs were used in 44% of the patients with no diabetes, 51% with incident diabetes and 50% with prevalent diabetes respectively. Individual prescriptions for patients with no, incident and prevalent diabetes were respectively: aspirin or other antiplatelet agents 91, 93, and 91%; β-blockers: 81, 84, and 79%; RAAS-blockers: 77, 76, and 68%; statins: 80, 80, and 79%. The proportion of patients with coronary artery disease and prevalent diabetes reaching the treatment targets were 20% for blood pressure, 53% for low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol) and 22% for haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c).

This European study demonstrates a low use of cardioprotective drug therapies among patients with a combination of coronary artery disease and diabetes, which will be contributing to the poor achievement of risk factor treatment targets for cardiovascular prevention.