Trends in cardiovascular admissions and procedures for people with and without diabetes in England, 1996–2005

The aim of this study was to compare 10-year trends in admissions, with and without diabetes recorded, for myocardial infarction, angina, stroke, percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).

We used national hospital-activity data in England collected between 1996 and 2005 and compared trends in admissions, after adjusting for age, sex and area-level deprivation.

Overall, there was a modest fall in the number of admissions for angina and little change in the numbers of admissions for myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke. From 1996/1997 to 2005/2006, the numbers of admissions with diabetes recorded rose for each of MI, angina and stroke; the proportion of admissions with type 2 diabetes recorded rose from 7.2% to 13.9% for MI, from 6.7% to 15.3% for angina and from 6.2% to 11.3% for stroke. Over the 10-year period, after adjusting for age, sex and deprivation, the number of admissions for CABG rose about threefold; for PCI, the number of admissions with diabetes recorded rose 15-fold, compared with a fourfold increase in the number of admissions with diabetes not recorded.

We found significant increases in the numbers of admissions with type 2 diabetes recorded for major cardiovascular events and procedures, which has important financial and public-health implications. Better prevention of type 2 diabetes in at-risk patients and aggressive cardiovascular risk-factor management in current patients with diabetes is needed.