Boğaziçi Tıp Dergisi (Nov 2020)

High Levels of HbA1C among Internal Medicine Inpatients and Relationship with Undiagnosed Diabetes Rates

  • Elif Yıldırım Ayaz,
  • Nalan Okuroğlu,
  • Ali Özdemir

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14744/bmj.2020.75436
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 3
pp. 96 – 101

Abstract

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INTRODUCTION[|]Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity and may lead to microvascular and macrovascular complications. This can be prevented through early diagnosis of diabetes and achieving glycemic control. Measurement of the fasting glucose, random glucose, oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and HbA1C levels have been adopted in the diagnosis of diabetes. This study has searched for DM diagnosis rate using HbA1C measurements in the inpatient population.[¤]METHODS[|]This retrospective study included all inpatients whose HbA1C levels were measured at the Internal Diseases Clinic of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Training and Research Hospital in 2015. Glucose, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, fasting glucose levels, age, gender and primary causes of admission of the patients were recorded. The patients, who had HbA1C value of 6.5 or more, were defined as newly diagnosed DM. Before this study, the patients were included in three groups as patients with a previous diabetes diagnosis, patients with a new diabetes diagnosis and patients with no diabetes diagnosis.[¤]RESULTS[|]Among 1057 patients included in this study, 29.7% had past diabetes diagnosis (Group 1), 7.5% were newly diagnosed diabetes, while 62.8% patients have no diabetes. No statistically significant difference was found concerning age and gender distribution. No significant difference was found between the HbA1C, fasting glucose and random glucose levels of Group 1 and Group 2. BUN levels of the patients in Group 3 were lower than those in Group 1. Creatinine levels of Group 1 were higher than in Group 3. No significant difference was identified concerning the duration of hospital stay and mortality between the groups.[¤]DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION[|]New DM diagnosis rate was 7.5% among the patients admitted to the internal diseases clinic within a year. Besides, in the high-risk population of inpatients, the routine HbA1C measurement may lead to early diagnosis by increasing the undiagnosed patient rate.[¤]

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