Association of Lower Extremity Vascular Disease, Coronary Artery, and Carotid Artery Atherosclerosis in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Authors: Yang Zheng , Han Bing , Zhang Hongguang , Ji Guohui , Zhang Liang , Singh Bhupesh Kumar 
Published: October 2021

The motive of this article is to present the case study of patients to investigate the association between the ultrasonographic findings of lower extremity vascular disease (LEAD) and plaque formation. Secondly, to examine the association between the formation of coronary artery and carotid artery atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. 124 patients with type 2 diabetes (64 males and 60 females with the age group 25-78 years) are considered for the research studies who have registered themselves in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism from April 2017 to February 2019. All participants have reported their clinical information regarding diabetes, alcohol consumption, smoking status, and medication. The blood samples from subjects are collected for measurement of HbA1c, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-c, and LDL-c levels. Two-dimensional ultrasound has been used to measure the inner diameter, peak flow velocity, blood flow, and spectral width of the femoral artery, pop artery, anterior iliac artery, posterior tibial artery, and dorsal artery and to calculate the artery stenosis degree. Independent factors of atherosclerosis are determined by multivariate logistic regression analysis. The results are evaluated within the control group and it is found that there is no significant impact of gender, age, and body mass index (

P
>
0.05

) on the lower extremity vascular diseases. Those with smoking, alcohol consumption, hypertension, and dyslipidemia have higher positive rate (

P
<
0.05

). The type 2 diabetes mellitus group has higher diastolic blood pressure and lower triglyceride (

P
<
0.05

). Diastolic blood pressure, HbA1C, total cholesterol, HDL-c, and LDL-C are not remarkably dissimilar between the type 2 diabetes mellitus group and the control group (

P
>
0.05

). Compared with the control group, the type 2 diabetes mellitus group has higher frequency of lower extremity vascular diseases in the dorsal artery than in the pop artery (

P
<
0.05

). The blood flow of type 2 diabetes mellitus group is found to be lower than that of the control group, especially in the dorsal artery (

P
<
0.05

). The blood flow velocity of the dorsal artery is accelerated (

P
<
0.01

). Among 117 patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus (94.35%) with a certain degree of injury, there are 72 cases of type I carotid stenosis (58.06%), 30 cases of type II carotid stenosis (24.19%), and 15 cases of type III carotid stenosis (12.10%). Out of 108 subjects in the control group, there are 84 cases of type 0 carotid stenosis (77.78%), 19 cases of type I carotid stenosis (17.59%), 5 cases of type II carotid stenosis (4.63%), and 0 case of type III carotid stenosis (0.00%). Compared with the control group, carotid stenosis is more common in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (

P
<
0.05

). Age, smoking, duration of diseases, systolic blood pressure, and degree of carotid stenosis are found to be associated with atherosclerosis. The findings suggest that the color Doppler ultrasonography can give early warning when applied in patients with carotid and lower extremity vascular diseases to delay the incidence of diabetic macroangiopathy and to control the development of cerebral infarction, thus providing an important basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment.