QT and QTc dispersion are accurate predictors of cardiac death in newly diagnosed non-insulin dependent diabetes: cohort study

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Abstract
The study group of 182 patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (103 men; mean age 52.8 (SD 8.5) years) represented the Dundee cohort of the United Kingdom prospective diabetes study, which was recruited between 1982 and 1988. Patients were followed up for a mean of 10.3 (1.7) years. The inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study have been reported elsewhere. Patients with overt cardiac disease at baseline were excluded. A single observer (AAON) measured QT intervals as described previously.1–3 Cardiac death was mostly classified at the coordinating centre in Oxford, using the codes of the international classification of diseases, ninth revision. All analysis was done by Cox regression analysis, with cardiac death as the sole end point. We used forward stepwise analysis, each time using all three QT variables along with age, systolic blood pressure, sex, smoking, blood glucose concentration, and antihypertensive drug. As a result, we identified age, systolic blood pressure, sex, diuretics, and all QT variables as the potentially important variables. Finally we fitted the regression using these four variables with each of the three QT variables.