An increasing trend in the incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus in children aged 0-14 years in Romania--ten years (1988-1997) EURODIAB study experience.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the incidence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1) in Romanian children aged 0-14 years using EURODIAB Study methodology.


METHODS
Data were collected for a 10-year interval (1988-1997) for the whole country, using the capture-recapture method.


RESULTS
We registered 1,418 newly diagnosed patients. The mean total incidence rate was 3.051/100,000/year. There was a wide geographic variation (6.71-fold) between the highest and the lowest incidence rates in different districts. We noticed a progressive increase of age-specific incidence rates from 1.43/100,000/year for the 0-4 year age subgroup to 4.37/100,000/year (10-14 years). The annual mean incidence rate rose from 1.91/100,000/year (1988) to 3.94/100,000/year (1996).


CONCLUSIONS
Romania is one of the European countries with the lowest incidence rates (3.051/100,000/year) for DM1 in children. There was an evident increasing trend of DM1 incidence in children between 1988 and 1997, with an annual increase of 7.57%.
Ionescu-Tîrgovişte
C
C
Clinic of Diabetes, Institute of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases "N C Paulescu ", Bucharest, Romania.
Guja
C
C
Cãlin
A
A
Moţa
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012383:Romania / Q000453:epidemiology