January - March 2012, Volume 8, Issue 1

Ioacara S, Ionescu-Tirgoviste C, Guja C

Life Expectancy in Adult Diabetes Patients Treated with Insulin from Diagnosis

Acta Endo (Buc) 2012, 8 (1): 153-162
doi: 10.4183/aeb.2012.153

Aims. To investigate the historical changes in survival with diabetes in patients treated with insulin from diagnosis.\r\nMethods. We analyzed 2811 deaths, 51.5% males, registered at ?I. Pavel? Bucharest Diabetes Centre, aged 40-64 years and deceased between 1943 and 2009. We split the analysis in three time periods according to year of death: 1943-1965,\r\n1966-1988 and 1989-2009.\r\nResults. The mean age at diabetes onset was 51.4?6.8 years, with mean disease duration at death of 17.7?11.6 years\r\nand mean age at death of 69.1?11.2 years. The mean survival after diabetes onset was 13.9?9.8 years in 1943-1965, and rose to 17.3?9.6 years (p<0.001) in 1989-2009. There was a significant increase for coronary heart diseases and cancer and a significant decrease for infections and endstage\r\nrenal disease as causes of death.\r\nConclusions. We found no significant changes in age at onset, which combined with an increase in survival with diabetes lead to a significant increase in age at death.\r\nMajor historical events have a strong impact over survival after the onset of diabetes.

Keywords: age of onset, diabetes, epidemiology

Correspondence: Sorin Ioacara , ?N. Paulescu? National Institute of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases, Diabetes 1, Bucharest, Romania, Phone: +40722137717, Fax. 0040212102295,\r\nEmail: drsorin@yahoo.com