The Diabetes Mellitus Clinical Practice Guidelines of Singapore – Looking Back and Ahead

Abstract

The Singapore clinical practice guidelines (CPG) on diabetes mellitus were first drawn up in 1999. The main aim of the guidelines was to help physicians make sound clinical decisions on the management of diabetes mellitus by presenting up-to-date information on diagnosis, classification, treatment, outcomes and follow-up. The guidelines contained detailed recommendations on many aspects of diabetes care including the screening and diagnosis of diabetes, classification of diabetes, lifestyle modifications, pharmacotherapy, management of diabetic complications, and treatment of associated metabolic disorders. Diabetes management in special populations including children and adolescents, and pregnant women, were also detailed. The CPG was last revised in 2006. Since then, there has been a phenomenal rate of development of knowledge and an explosion of data challenging many traditional notions of diabetes. Therefore, a new working committee has been set up to update the Singapore diabetes mellitus CPG targeted for publication in 2012. In this manuscript, we aim to discuss briefly selected key issues that are likely to be extensively reviewed in our next CPG.