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Endocrine Abstracts (2017) 49 EP406 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.49.EP406

1Endocrinology, Hospital Virgen de la Victoria, Malaga, Spain; 2Internal Medicine, Hospital Virgen de la Victoria, Malaga, Spain; 3Cardiology, Hospital Virgen de la Victoria, Malaga, Spain.


Introduction: Episodes of poorly controlled diabetes (DM) are one of the most frequent medical complications during hospitalization in the elderly population.

Objectives: To analyze the prevalence of episodes of diabetic decompensation in patients admitted in Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (OST) area.

Material and methods: Descriptive analysis of patients admitted to OST Service who presented abnormally high or decreased blood glucose levels according to the criterion of the Orthopedic Surgeon who performed the consultation.

Results: From June 2008 to December 2014, 1486 consultations were sent to Internal Medicine, Cardiology or Endocrinology, regarding patients admitted to the OST area who had suffered some type of medical decompensation during admission. Of these patients, 437 (29.4%) had a documented history of DM. The reason for consultation was poorly controlled DM in 124 patients (8.3%), with 111 patients (89.5%) presenting hyperglycemia and 13 (10.5%) presenting hypoglycaemia. However, since the consultations were made by the Orthopedic Surgeon who requested it, after the initial evaluation of all these patients, the diagnosis of poorly controlled DM was only considered in 108 patients (7.4% of the total decompensated patients), since the rest, despite presenting glycemia above 125 on fasting, were considered controlled taking into account their particular clinical situation. This implies an actual decompensation of 24.7% of patients with known DM.

Conclusions: DM is a cause of medical decompensation in 8.3% of patients admitted to OST. One in four known diabetics had abnormal blood glucose levels.

Together with previous studies in which we concluded that approximately one in six known hypertensive patients is decompensated during admission to surgical areas, we suggest that an early evaluation of blood glucose and blood pressure performed by Cardiology, Endocrinology or Internal Medicine could be beneficial in terms of morbidity.

Volume 49

19th European Congress of Endocrinology

Lisbon, Portugal
20 May 2017 - 23 May 2017

European Society of Endocrinology 

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