Prevalence of micro and macrovascular complications of diabetes detected at single visit screening

Objective: To describe the prevalence of complications of diabetes and to study the relationship between the prevalence of complications and the duration of diabetes in a subset of Sri Lankan population Study design: Cross sectional case analysis of 6765 patients at National Diabetes Centre, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka. Data analysis: Data was analyzed with SPSS 11. Results: The mean duration of diabetes in the study population was 7.9 years (SD=6.7). The results showed that the prevalence of micro vascular complications increased with increasing duration of diabetes. In patients with diabetes mellitus for less than 1 year, retinopathy prevalence was 6.8% and in those with 16-20 years diabetes duration it rose to 52.6%. Neuropathy prevalence at diagnosis was 11% and at 16- 20 years it was 54.3%. Nephropathy prevalence at diagnosis and at 16-20 years was 18.8% and 23.8% respectively. Conclusions: The study has demonstrated high prevalence of complications at the initial diagnosis. Hence, early screening techniques would be beneficial in order to prevent and retard the progression of the disease and to reduce the associated morbidity and mortality. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sjdem.v2i1.4328 Sri Lanka Journal of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism 2012; 2 : 17-20