Endocrine Abstracts

Backgrounds: Cerebral aneurysms are a common disease that affects 1–5% of general populations, with an annual rupture risk of 0–1%. Smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and aging have been considered as risk factors for cerebral aneurysms, but there were few epidemic studies. In this study, we evaluated the risk effect of diabetes on cerebral aneurysm in Korean population.

Methods: We used data from participants who underwent brain MRA and laboratory test for the screening purpose at the Healthcare System Gangnam Center of Seoul National University Hospital between January 2010 and December 2013. Among a total of 18,477 participants, we analyzed 9,235 whose clinical and laboratory data were eligible. Participants with diabetes were 1,350 (14.6%). Cerebral aneurysm was defined as an abnormal focal dilatation of a cerebral arteries with a maximum diameter greater than 3 mm.

Results: Compared the participants without diabetes, those with diabetes have older age, higher proportion of male and smoking, heavier weight, higher blood pressure, and higher levels of fasting glucose, serum cholesterol and CRP. The proportion of participants with cerebral aneurysm were 4.1% in the diabetic group and 3.7% in the non-diabetic group without statistical significance (P = 0.523). In logistic regression, old age and lower LDL-cholesterol showed significant risk effects on cerebral aneurysm, but male gender, diabetes, obesity and smoking did not. Multivariate analyses showed corresponding results.

Conclusion: In this study, diabetes was not significant risk factor of risk of cerebral aneurysms. Neither smoking, obesity, nor hypertension were significant risk factors. Of note, we found that the prevalence of cerebral aneurysms decreased as LDL cholesterol levels increased. The lack of association between the traditional risk factors of atherosclerosis and cerebral aneurysm requires further studies.