Diabetes Q&A

Screen-Detected Diabetes Associated With Better Outcomes

Individuals with diabetes that is detected through screening are diagnosed earlier and have better outcomes than those with diabetes that is clinically detected, according to the results of a recent study.

For their study, the researchers used data from the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), a community- and individual-based public health program in Sweden in which participants are screened for diabetes at age 30, 40, 50, and 60 years. Between 1992 and 2013, the researchers identified 1024 screen-detected cases and 8642 clinically detected cases of diabetes.
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Overall, the average age at diagnosis was 4.6 years lower in those with screen-detected diabetes compared with clinically detected diabetes. Those with clinically detected diabetes had worse health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, cardiovascular and renal disease, and retinopathy.

“How much of these associations can be explained by earlier treatment because of screening rather than healthy user bias, lead time bias and length time bias warrants further investigation,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Feldman AL, Griffin SJ, Norberg M, et al. Screening for type 2 diabetes: do screen-detected cases fare better? [published online August 23, 2017]. Diabetologia. doi:10.1007/s00125-017-4402-4.