oa Coronary artery bypass graft patients in Qatar: Possibly the youngest with the highest incidence of diabetes in the world

Coronary Artery Disease in Qatar: Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) - population possibly the youngest with the highest incidence of diabetes in the world. CS Carr, M Abdulsamad, AM Alkhulaifi Objective: Coronary artery disease is a potentially life-threatening condition. At the Heart Hospital we have an internationally established surgical database to collect data on our cardiac surgical patients. We studied our isolated CABG patients in terms of demographics, rate of diabetes, left ventricular function, and percentage of glycosylated haemoglobin (marker of blood sugar control). Methods: Data were collected from isolated CABG patients (September 2011 until March 2013) at the new Heart Centre in Qatar. Data were derived from theatre logs, the 'Dendrite' surgical database and the Hospital Information System, A standard statistical package was used for analysis. Results: There were 314 patients who underwent isolated CABG within the 18 month study period. 287 (91%) were male; the average age was 55.87 years (55 mean, 58 mode, 55 median). 188 (60%) patients were of Indian Subcontinent origin with the overall ethnicity represented in table 1. Table 1: Distribution of ethnic origin of the CABG patients. 213 patients had a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (68% of the CABG patients). The glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1C) was measured in 88% (275 out of 314 patients) of the CABG patients (213 of the diabetic patients). The average value was 7.66 (normal value <6%). The range of values for our patients is shown in figure 1. Figure 1: Distribution of HbA1c for the diabetic patients. The ejection fractions for the patients are divided into good, moderate and poor. The proportions of each group are shown in figure 2. Figure 2: Pie chart representation of the distribution of pre-operative ejection fractions of the CABG patients. Conclusions: Our CABG population appears to be very young (compared to the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgeons, EACTS, 2010 data book, data for 29 countries). Our rate of diabetes is extremely high at 68% and has extremely variable sugar control. Mass screening for diabetes and early tight control may have a considerable impact on our general population in terms of long term health and financial burden on the health services.