[Treatment of diabetic coma and precoma with continuous low-dose insulin infusions (author's transl)]

13 patients, nine women and four men, aged 22 to 83 years, were treated for diabetic coma or precoma between September 1974 and January 1976. Ten patients were known diabetics and six of them had been treated with insulin. On admission blood sugar was 32.4 +/- 3.3 mmol/l (5.84 +/- 0.6 g/l). The capillary blood pH was 7.15 +/- 0.06 (n = 13). Treatment consisted of continuous insulin infusion (6 IU soluble insulin/hour), physiological saline, potassium substitution and sodium bicarbonate (if the pH was below 7.15). In the first hours of treatment 98 +/- 12IU of insulin, 6.5 +/- 0.5 litres of fluid, 168 +/- 22 mmol of potassium and 237 +/- 55 mmol NaHCO3 were required. During the first 4 hours of the insulin infusion the blood sugar decrease per hour was 3.55 mmol/l (0.64 g/l). Hypokalaemia during treatment occurred in one case, hypoglycaemia was not observed. A preceding treatment with insulin and severe acidosis did not influence therapeutic success. Twelve patients were treated successfully, one patient died 6 hours after admission following mesenteric arterial embolism.