HbA1c screening can speed up diagnosis of diabetes among adults between 40 and 70 years
A new population-based study found that HbA1c screening in adults aged 40-70 years reduced the time to diabetes diagnosis by a median of 2.2 years when compared with routine clinical care.
The study results were published in the journal Diabetologia.
Undiagnosed diabetes can be detected by screening programs much earlier than symptomatic or incidental diagnosis. But the improvement in time to diagnosis achieved by screening programs compared with routine clinical care is uncertain. Hence researchers conducted a study to estimate the reduction in time to diabetes diagnosis achieved by HbA1c-based screening in middle-aged adults.
Using the UK Biobank population-based study, participants aged 40-70 years were taken into the study by measuring the HbA1c at enrolment. Primary and secondary healthcare data were linked and those with a pre-existing diabetes diagnosis were identified. Among the remaining participants without a diabetes diagnosis, an elevated enrolment HbA1c level was used (≥48 mmol/mol [≥6.5%]) to identify those with undiagnosed diabetes. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to assess the time between enrolment HbA1c measurement and subsequent clinical diabetes diagnosis up to 10 years, and Cox regression was used to identify clinical factors associated with a delayed diabetes diagnosis.
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