Kavitha Shanigaram1 , Raghava Polanki2 , Ajay Mohan Varahala
BACKGROUND T1DM accounts for about 10% of all cases of diabetes. This represents a more than 400-fold variation in the incidence per 100 population. It is estimated that of the 400,000 total new cases of type 1 diabetes occurring annually in all children under age 14 yrs. in the world, about half are in Asia even though the incidence rates in that continent are much lower, because the total number of children in Asia is larger. We wanted to assess the incidence of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and study the demographic details, biochemical and metabolic alterations in these patients. METHODS 50 children aged between 0 to 12 years admitted to the Department of Paediatrics at a tertiary care centre were analysed in the study. The study was conducted for a 2-year period. RESULTS The incidence was 1.3 /1000 Paediatric admissions in this study. The mean age was 9.7 years. However, the mean age of onset of T1DM was 7.8 years. Most of the children belonged to low socio-economic group and the consanguinity was also high in this study. There was a wide distribution of clinical presentations in the children with T1DM. Children also presented with mild, moderate and severe diabetic ketoacidosis. 2 children died in our study due to DKA. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of T1DM is increasing. All children with type 1 diabetes should have access to appropriate insulin therapy as most of the children had missed insulin injections that lead to severity of the disease and the children presented with DKA.
