McKnight JA, Wild SH, Lamb MJ, Cooper MN, Jones TW, Davis EA, Hofer S et al.

Glycaemic control of type 1 diabetes in clinical practice early in the 21st century: an international comparison. Diabet Med. 2015;32:1036-50.

How do outcomes measures for type 1 diabetes vary from country to country? This study used HbA1c data from population and clinic-based registries to see what levels of glycaemic control are being achieved, stratified by age and sex.

 

Overall, the researchers obtained HbA1c data on 324,501 people with type 1 diabetes, from the following countries: Australia, Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands (data provided by Diabeter), New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Ukraine, USA, and Wales.

 

Key findings:

• Overall, among children with type 1 dabetes aged younger than 15 years, the proportion with HbA1c below 7.5% (signifying good glycemic control) ranged from 15.7% to 46.4%.
• Among people with type 1 diabetes aged 15-25 years, the proportion with HbA1c below 7.5% ranged from 8.9% to 49.5%.
• Among people with type 1 diabetes aged 25 years or older, the proportion with HbA1c below 7.5% ranged from 20.5% to 53.6%.
• Only minor sex differences were observed. Overall, 29% of men and 27% of women achieved an HbA1c level below 7.5%.
• Data on use of insulin pumps were available from 12 of the registry sources, and showed wide variation between registries.

 

Discussing their findings, the researchers said…

They said a next step could be to investigate whether identifying the reasons for between-country differences in HbA1c levels could help improve future outcomes.

 

For PubMed abstract click here.