Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Poorer control of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (cvd) has been reported in diabetic women compared with men.

Objective: To investigate whether control of diabetes and risk factors for cvd differ between sexes in a cohort of diabetic patients monitored at an outpatient endocrinology clinic from 2004 till 2014.

Design: Observational, retrospective cohort study.

Patients and methods: A cohort of 424 randomly selected diabetic patients (dm type 2 (dm2) 84.6%; 58.3% female; mean age 63.4 years and mean diabetes duration 15.7 years) was monitored from 2004 to 2014. Final cohort size was 293 patients (dm2: 80.2%; female 59.4%; mean age 69.3 years and diabetes duration 25.1 years). Data about glycaemic, lipid and blood pressure (bp) control, antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy were collected from clinical records at baseline and 10 years afterwards.

Results: In 2004, 27.8% of the men and 23.5% of the women had an hba1c < 7%. This increased to 36.8% in men and 39.3% in women in 2014 (P<0.001). Patients having systolic bp (sbp) < 140 mm hg changed from 79.5% to 75.9% and from 70% to 56.4% in men and women respectively (P<0.001). Patients with ldl-cholesterol < 100 mg/dl increased from 44.3% to 81.2% in men and 44.9% to 85.2% in women (P<0.001). Obesity increased in men (35.2% to 38.3%) and decreased in women (63.6% to 58.2%) (P<0,05). Antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy increased from 46.9% to 68.4% in men and 39.7% to 68.6% in women (P<0.001). In 2014, all patients with cvd were on antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy. Smoking was more frecuent in men (27.7% versus 4.7%) (P<0.001).

Conclusions: After 10 years of follow-up, glycaemic and lipid control and use of antiplatelet agents has improved in both sexes. No significant difference was found in risk factors control between men and women, except for sbp and obesity.