[Characteristics of diabetes mellitus patients under a chronic disease program]

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a chronic noncommunicable disease with a prevalence of 9.8% in Argentina. A Chronic Disease Program was developed for monitoring of patients with DM at the Ambulatory Center of DASPU, in National University of Cordoba Argentina.

To describe clinical characteristics of DM patients under a chronic disease program and to identify metabolic control variables associated with the presence of complications.

Observational, cross-sectional, descriptive study of DM Patients who attended at ambulatory center of DASPU since 2010. Categorical variables were described as proportions and number as mean ± SD. The comparison of means was performed using student test.

1017 patients were analyzed with mean age of 61 ± 14 years, with 54.6% of male, 8.5% had type 1 DM, and 90.9% had DM type 2: O.7% had gestational DM. Cardiovascular risk factor were: hypertension in 78%, dyslipidemia in 35. 25.5% of patients had micro vascular complications and 18.6% had macro vascular complications. Coronary heart disease was the most frequent complication in 14.5% of the patients. . 69% had values of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) ≤ 7, 4%; the average total cholesterol was 185 mg / dl and LDL cholesterol 111 mg / dl. The average HbA1C was higher in patients with micro vascular complications, HbA1c 7.47% vs. 7.18% (p = 0.009). In patients with macrovascular complications there was no significant inverse trend, HbA1c 7.21% vs 7.26% with and without complications (p = 0.65). The average total cholesterol was lower in the group with macro vascular complications 173 mg / dl and 189 mg / dl (p = 0.001). Similar result was observed in LDL-C: 101 vs 113 mg / dl (p = 0.001) in patients with and without complications, respectively.

Clinical characteristics of the patients under the program were similar to other studies reported in the literature, but the values of HbA1c and total cholesterol have better results, achieving optimal values in a large percentage of the population, with lower levels in patients with macrovascular complications.