Early Diastolic Dysfunction of Left Ventricle and its Relation to Pathologic Finding in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

In diabetes mellitus, the development of myocardial injury secondary to hypertension and coronary arteriosclerosis poses a major clinical problem. In addition, this issue has been the focus of great interest and it has been demonstrated that the existence of myocardial injury is not attributable to hypertension or coronary arteriosclerosis. It has also been reported in various pathological studies that even in the diabetic heart without hypertension and coronary artery lesions, various histological changes such as myocyte hypertrophy, perivascular fibrosis, and interstitial fibrosis are present (1–3). On the other hand, the existence of functional abnormalities such as left ventricular systolic and diastolic dysfunction has also been reported (4–12). It is, however, not yet clear which pathological changes account for these functional disturbances in the diabetic heart. To clarify this point we investigated the relation between systolic and diastolic function and the myocardial histological findings in diabetic patients.