Management of adult diabetic ketoacidosis

Abstract

Viktor Rosival SYNLAB, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Dérer's Hospital, Bratislava, Slovakia In the article “Management of adult diabetic ketoacidosis” by Gosmanov et al1 there are some discrepancies with the literature. The authors write, “Insulin deficiency […] which underlie the pathophysiology of DKA [diabetic ketoacidosis]”, and on page 258, they write, “Insulin administration is essential in DKA treatment [...]”.1 Since the Nobel prize was awarded in 1977 to Rosalyn S Yalow for the development of new methods of biochemical analysis that make it possible to measure insulin concentration in human plasma, these methods have been used worldwide. In 1981, the monograph Diabetic Coma: Ketoacidotic and Hyperosmolar was published,2 and on page 67, Figure 6.3 has the names of 12 authors who have reported sufficient amounts of plasmatic insulin in patients with DKA.Read the original article