Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2018) 56 P503 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.56.P503

Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain.


Introduction: The available questionnaires for the detection of hypoglycemia are designed for patients with type 1 Diabetes (T1DM), and do not take into account some characteristics of patients with type 2 Diabetes (T2DM). For instance most of T2DM patients do not perform capillary blood glucose self-monitoring as part of their daily treatment and hypoglycemia might be underestimated. Nevertheless, hypoglycemia can have a negative impact on T2DM patients, in terms of increasing the risk of dementia and mortality. For this reason, a questionnaire was designed to assess the frequency and severity of hypoglycemia in T2DM.

Methods: A prospective study was performed based on the completion of a questionnaire in patients with T1DM and T2DM between July and December 2016.

Results: 310 patients were evaluated (160 with T2DM, 76% of which were under insulin treatment). A total of 53.75% of the patients with T2DM reported at least one episode of hypoglycemia in the last six months (88% treated with insulin), and 20% of the patients had symptoms of nocturnal hypoglycemia. Notably, a 33% of the patients with T2DM reported episodes of asymptomatic hypoglycemia. Regarding the severity, 10.6% of patients with T2DM reported at least one episode of hypoglycemia that required assistance of a third person (vs 17.4% of T1DM) and 3.7% of patients presented an episode that required medical assistance (vs. 3.3% of T1DM). We observed a tendency to underestimation of the hypoglycemic events (both by the patient and the physician) in T2DM patients compared to T1DM: 1/3 of patients with T2DM with nocturnal hypoglycemia did not report it to their endocrinologist and in 1/3 of the cases, the physician did not question about hypoglycemia episodes.

Conclusions: This study shows that a significant percentage of T2DM patients had suffered episodes of hypoglycemia, sometimes severe or nocturnal. A questionnaire aimed at the detection of hypoglycemia in T2DM could be useful, although more studies are necessary for its validation.

Volume 56

20th European Congress of Endocrinology

Barcelona, Spain
19 May 2018 - 22 May 2018

European Society of Endocrinology 

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