Glycated albumin in patients with neonatal diabetes mellitus is apparently low in relation to glycemia compared with that in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus.
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Abstrè
BACKGROUND
Although glycated albumin (GA) is a useful glycemic control marker in neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM), there has been no report comparing GA levels between NDM patients and non-diabetic infants. Moreover, GA in NDM patients may be apparently low in relation to glycemia due to the assumed elevation of albumin metabolism in neonates.
METHODS
We compared GA levels between 6 patients with NDM and 18 non-diabetic infants or 14 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Mean blood glucose (MBG) was calculated on the basis of self-monitoring of blood glucose for 1 month before GA measurement.
RESULTS
GA in NDM patients was significantly higher than that in non-diabetic infants (22.0 ± 5.8 vs. 10.2 ± 1.4%; p < 0.0001), and GA levels significantly correlated with MBG in both NDM and T1DM patients. However, GA in NDM patients was significantly lower than in T1DM patients (25.8 ± 5.3%; p = 0.0046), whereas MBG in NDM patients was significantly higher than in T1DM patients (233 ± 79 vs. 183 ± 41 mg/dl; p = 0.0006).
CONCLUSIONS
GA levels in NDM patients were apparently low in relation to glycemia. Therefore, reference values for infants should be used for assessing the GA level in NDM.