Clinical and laboratory characteristics of type 1 diabetes in children and adolescents: experience from a medical center.
BACKGROUND
The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is increasing rapidly worldwide, predominantly in younger individuals. We developed a checklist of all symptoms of T1D reported in the literature and compared the completeness of the recording of symptoms at initial presentation before and after the checklist was adopted.


METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed the records of patients newly diagnosed with T1D from January 1, 1979 through September 30, 2006 to assess the presenting features and test the usefulness of a symptom checklist in evaluating the history on presentation. The checklist was incorporated into the records as of October 1, 1994.


RESULTS
Of the 304 patients identified, 130 (43%) had checklists in the charts. There were 146 (48%) boys, 98 (32%) who were diagnosed under the age of 6 years, and 198 (65%) presented with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Records with a checklist noted diabetic symptoms that were subtle and easily ignored more often than records without the checklist. As compared with those diagnosed at an older age, patients diagnosed at < or = 6 years were more likely to be male, have DKA and a shorter symptom duration, and report more episodes of preceding viral infection and dyspnea. Patients with DKA also had a shorter symptom duration.


CONCLUSIONS
A diabetic symptom checklist was helpful in identifying clinical diabetic symptoms and signs which were otherwise easily ignored. Younger children were more likely to have a shorter symptom duration and a higher incidence of DKA.
Ting
Wei-Hsin
WH
Department of Pediatrics, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Huang
Chi-Yu
CY
Lo
Fu-Sung
FS
Hung
Chen-Mei
CM
Chan
Chia-Jung
CJ
Li
Hsin-Jung
HJ
Lin
Chao-Hsu
CH
Lee
Hung-Chang
HC
Lee
Yann-Jinn
YJ
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016883:Diabetic Ketoacidosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies