ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Cardiovascular Endocrinology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1595475
Effect of Metabolic Syndrome on Coronary Artery Atherosclerotic Plaque in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients
Provisionally accepted
- West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: The effect of MS on coronary artery plaques detected by coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients is not fully understood. This study aimed to investigate the effect of MS and its components on coronary artery plaques by comparing CCTA characteristics, including plaque types, the severity of coronary plaques and high-risk plaques between T2DM patients with and without MS. Methods: This study retrospectively enrolled 2,431 patients with T2DM who underwent Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) at West China Hospital between January 2015 to February 2022. These patients were divided into two groups based on the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome (MS). The plaque type, coronary artery stenosis, extent of coronary artery plaques, high-risk coronary plaque features, the segment involvement score (SIS), the segment stenosis score (SSS) and multivessel disease (MVD) based on CCTA data were evaluated and compared between two groups. Results: For T2DM patients, those with MS (61.5 %, n=1496) had more noncalcified/mixed plaques, more nonobstructive stenosis and higher SIS and SSS values than those without (P < 0.05 for all). The proportion of patients with any noncalcified plaque, any mixed plaque, SIS≥4 and SSS≥7were in parallel with the numbers of MS components (P for trend<0.01 for all). Multivariate logistic regression revealed that MS were independently associated with any noncalcified plaque (OR=1.232, P =0.024), any mixed plaque (OR=1.307, P=0.006), any nonobstructive stenosis(OR=1.615, P = 0.001)，SIS≥4 (OR=1.529; P<0.001), SSS≥7 (OR=1.387; P=0.001), and any spotty calcification (OR=1.870, P =0.001) in T2DM patients after adjusting for the confounding factors. Conclusion: MS is independently associated with adverse coronary artery plaque characteristics in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients, including increased mixed, noncalcified, nonobstructive, spotty calcification plaques, as well as extensive coronary artery disease (CAD). These findings highlight the need for early detection and management of MS to reduce cardiovascular risks in T2DM patients.
Keywords: metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, Coronary computed tomography angiography, Atherosclerotic, coronary artery plaque
Received: 18 Mar 2025; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Shi, Jiang, Gao, Wang, Li and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuan Li, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.