[Chronic non-insulin deficient hyperglycemia in children]

Two per cent of "diabetic" children actually exhibit a specific condition which is not a disease in the conventional acceptance of the term. Characteristics of this biologic anomaly, whose pathophysiology is as yet incompletely understood, include the absence of clinical manifestations, with the diagnosis being established upon routine tests (e.g., as part of a school health check-up or during screening tests in family members of diabetics); blood glucose levels or glucose tolerance test results consistently above the 97th percentile of reference values, with some degree of variation over time; normal serum insulin levels; glycosylated hemoglobin levels usually near the upper limit of normal; dominant autosomal inheritance; lack of association with either HLA markers or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus; lack of microvascular degenerative disease, at least in this study group, even after more than 30 years follow-up; lack of progression towards insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.