GP's databases could identify tens of thousands with undiagnosed diab...( Researchers who examined blood test ...),Health

Researchers who examined blood test records in a survey of over 3.6 million patient records held by UK GP surgeries have found thousands of cases of probable undiagnosed diabetes. This could help identify tens of thousands of people with undiagnosed diabetes in UK.

The research is published in the March issue of the British Journal of General Practice and was led by Dr Tim Holt of the University of Warwick with colleagues from Nottingham University, Egton Medical Information Systems (EMIS) in Leeds, and Imperial College in London. The article is entitled Identifying undiagnosed diabetes: cross-sectional survey of 3.6 million patients electronic records. The full list of the researchers is detailed below.

The researchers surveyed 3,630,296 electronic patient records in 480 GP surgeries all over the UK which contribute anonymised electronic health record data to the QRESEARCH database in Nottingham for research purposes.

The research team looked for biochemical evidence of undiagnosed diabetes recorded in blood glucose measurements. They first eliminated known patients with diabetes, and cases where raised blood glucose was found but diabetes had already been ruled out as a cause by further tests. They found that this still left 3,758 patients whose last blood glucose level was indicative of undiagnosed diabetes, and 32,785 patients whose last level was at best borderline leaving many of them at significant risk of diabetes and requiring further assessment.

Lead author Dr Tim Holt, from the University of Warwicks Warwick Medical School, said: The search was originally piloted in my own practice in Warwickshire, and six individuals were found, most of whom were diagnosed with diabetes on further testing. The majority of practices sampled in the research project included such patients. If the same survey was extended to all UK GP surgeries we estimate that 60,000 people would be identified with evidence of undiagnosed diabe
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