A correlative study of Epicardial fat thickness with other cardiovascular risk factors in patients with prediabetes

Prediabetes is a condition between a normal glucose tolerance and diabetes mellitus. It includes impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), impaired fasting glucose (IFG), or both. Prediabetes is related with undesirable cardiovascular outcomes. Epicardial fat thickness (EFT) has been correlated with cardiovascular risk factors. We herein aimed to assess EFT in prediabetic patients. We evaluated100 patients with prediabetes and 100 ageand gender-matched healthy subjects. Demographic and anthropometric characteristics [age, sex, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference (WC)] and laboratory findings [fasting plasma glucose (FPG), postprandial plasma glucose (PPG), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), low density lipoprotein (LDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglycerides (TG)] were assessed. Transthoracic echocardiography was used to evaluate EFT. All the study subjects were also subjected for assessment of hepatic steatosis. There were no significant differences between the case and control groups in terms of age, gender, and BMI., Waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were found to be significantly higher in the case group than control group (p<0.05). When compared with the control group, the mean EFT was significantly higher in all prediabetic subgroups (IGT or IFG, p<0.001) than controls. The presence of hepatic steatosis had significant positive correlation with EFT. We concluded that EFT levels to be increased in all prediabetic patients regardless of FPG and HbA1c. Furthermore, EFT significantly correlated with the patients' WC and hepatic steatosis.