(10-11-07)Mortality risk doubled in type 1 diabetes

Children and young adults with type 1 diabetes have double the mortality risk of non-diabetic people of the same age, a study in Italy has shown.

Specialists at the University of Turin, Italy, assessed mortality rates in two cohorts (one hospital-based and one population-based) of people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the province between 1974 and 2000.

They identified a total of 1,210 incident cases; 677 of these patients were aged up to 14 years and 533 were aged 15-29 years.

During a mean follow-up period of 15.8 years (range 1.96-29.9 years), there were a total of 19 deaths in almost 16,000 person-years of observations, giving an all-cause mortality rate of 1.19/1,000 person-years.

The researchers calculated that 9.54 deaths would have been expected in the study period, rather than the 19 that occurred, leading to a standardized mortality ratio of 1.96 (95% confidence interval 1.25-3.08). The mean duration of diabetes was 13.4 years in those who died and 13.3 years in those who survived.

Of the 19 deaths, nine were clearly related to diabetes, said the researchers. These nine deaths comprised three relating to diabetic ketoacidosis, three relating to hypoglycaemic coma, and three relating to diabetic nephropathy in haemodialysis. The researchers concluded that "children and young adults with onset of diabetes in the period 1974-2000 experienced a two-fold higher mortality risk than Italian people of similar age and sex."

Source: European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) annual meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 17-21 September 2007, presentation number P0333.

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