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Prevalence of diabetes mellitus secondary to pancreatic diseases (type 3c)
Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews, 05/04/2012
Clinical Article
Ewald N et al. - Diabetes mellitus secondary to pancreatic diseases (especially chronic pancreatitis) seems more common than generally believed with a prevalence of 9.2% among the subjects studied here. Since the awareness of this diabetes type is poor, misclassification is quite frequent. A common problem seems to be the differentiation between type 2 and type 3. Yet, the right classification of diabetes mellitus is important, since there are special therapeutic options and problems in patients with diabetes secondary to pancreatic diseases.
Methods- In this study the authors investigated 1868 patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus who had been admitted to the hospital during the last 24 months.
- Patient data were diligently studied and patients were reclassified according to the diabetes classification as proposed by the American Diabetes Association.
- Among 1868 subjects, 172 patients could be classified as type 3c diabetes mellitus (9.2%).
- Among these were 135 diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis (78.5%), 12 with hereditary hemochromatosis, 14 with pancreatic cancer and 7 with cystic fibrosis.
- Thus, diabetes mellitus due to chronic pancreatitis occurred in this collective in 7.2% of all diabetic subjects.
- Misclassification of these patients was very common.
- Only 51.2% (88/172) were initially classified correctly.
- Most type 3 diabetes patients were initially misclassified as type 2 diabetes (69/84).
