Inaccurate Diagnosis of Diabetes Type in Youth: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Implications

Authors

Mustafa Tosur
Xiaofan Huang
Audrey S Inglis
Rebecca Schneider Aguirre
Maria J Redondo

Publication Date

4-17-2024

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-58927-6

PMID

38632329

PMCID

PMC11024140

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

4-17-2024

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes

Keywords

Adolescent, Child, Female, Humans, Male, C-Peptide, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1, Diabetic Ketoacidosis, Prevalence, Diagnostic Errors, Pediatric diabetes, Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, Diabetes, Misdiagnosis, Endocrinology, Endocrine system and metabolic diseases

Abstract

Classifying diabetes at diagnosis is crucial for disease management but increasingly difficult due to overlaps in characteristics between the commonly encountered diabetes types. We evaluated the prevalence and characteristics of youth with diabetes type that was unknown at diagnosis or was revised over time. We studied 2073 youth with new-onset diabetes (median age [IQR] = 11.4 [6.2] years; 50% male; 75% White, 21% Black, 4% other race; overall, 37% Hispanic) and compared youth with unknown versus known diabetes type, per pediatric endocrinologist diagnosis. In a longitudinal subcohort of patients with data for ≥ 3 years post-diabetes diagnosis (n = 1019), we compared youth with steady versus reclassified diabetes type. In the entire cohort, after adjustment for confounders, diabetes type was unknown in 62 youth (3%), associated with older age, negative IA-2 autoantibody, lower C-peptide, and no diabetic ketoacidosis (all, p < 0.05). In the longitudinal subcohort, diabetes type was reclassified in 35 youth (3.4%); this was not statistically associated with any single characteristic. In sum, among racially/ethnically diverse youth with diabetes, 6.4% had inaccurate diabetes classification at diagnosis. Further research is warranted to improve accurate diagnosis of pediatric diabetes type.