Odermarsky M, et al. - This prospective study concentrates on the risk factors for arterial damage in children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). The outcome suggests that the diabetes-risk genotype DQ2/8 and systemic inflammation contribute to pro-atherosclerotic vascular changes in children and adolescents with T1D.

Methods

• For this study, total eighty children and adolescents with T1D were explored twice, approximately 2 years apart, for carotid artery intima-media thickness (cIMT) and compliance (CAC), flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) of the brachial artery, and plasma levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-8.
• For human leucocyte antigen (HLA), all subjects were genotyped.
• The number of respiratory tract infections (RTI) amid the past year was obtained by a questionnaire in 56 patients.

Results

• cIMT progression, characterized as percentage (%) change of cIMT from baseline, correlated inversely with the % changes of both CAC (p=0.04,r=-0.3;n=62) and FMD (p=0.03,r=-0.3;n=47).
• In multivariate investigation, RTI frequency correlated significantly with cIMT progression irrespective of age, diabetes duration, BMI, and HbA1c (p=0.03,r=0.3).
• When patients were divided in relation to RTI, the relationship of DQ2/8 with cIMT progression remained significant in patients with more than three infections/year (p=0.04,r=0.3).
• Amid follow-up, the group of DQ2/8 patients with hsCRP>1 mg/l demonstrated significantly higher levels of plasma MMP-8 than the non-DQ2/8 group.