Hyperglycaemia ✅ Flashcards
What history is important in a child presenting with hyperglycaemia?
- Duration of symptoms
- Infection, particularly candidiasis
- Vomiting or abdominal pain
- Family history of diabetes or other autoimmune disease
What might vomiting and abdominal pain suggest with hyperglycaemia?
Ketoacidosis
What is often found on clinical examination in children with newly diagnosed diabetes?
No abnormal findings
What is critical in children with hyperglycaemia and presumed diabetes?
To distinguish between T1DM and T2DM
Why is it important to differentiate between T1DM and T2DM?
Treatment will be very different for each form
What suggests type 1 diabetes?
- Weight loss
- Dehydration
- Signs of acidosis such as Kussmaul breathing
- Sweet breath
- Depressed consciousness
- Signs of cerebral oedema
What is Kussmaul breathing?
Deep and tachypnoeic
What suggests type 2 diabetes?
- Overweight
- Hypertension
- Acanthosis nigrans
What investigations need to be considered in hyperglycaemic children?
- Glucose testing
- HbA1c
- GAD antibodies
- Screening for other autoimmune disease
What are the forms of glucose testing?
- Random
- Two hour glucose tolerance test
- Fasting
What is the diagnostic value for diabetes on random or GTT?
> 11.1mmol/L
What is the diagnostic value for diabetes on fasting blood glucose?
> 7mmol/L
What can HbA1c tell you in a newly presenting child with hyperglycaemia?
May indicate the length of the prodrome
What are GAD antibodies?
Glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies
What does the presence of GAD antibodies suggest?
Autoimmune mediated T1DM
When is screening for other autoimmune diseases indicated?
When a diagnosis of T1DM seems likely
What testing can indicate T2DM when there is uncertainty?
Formal oral glucose tolerance test with measurement of high concentrations of insulin and c-peptide on baseline and 2 hour blood samples, along with suppressed sex hormone binding globulin concentrations
What is the most common form of childhood diabetes?
T1DM
What causes T1DM?
T-cell mediated autoimmune damage to pancreatic beta cells
What genes are implicated in T1DM?
Strong HLA associations with DQA, DQ8, and DRB
What kind of genes are DQA, DQ8, and DRB?
Major histocompatibility class II genes
How does the onset of T1DM compare between pre-school children and adolescents?
Has a more rapid onset in pre-school children
What does the rapidly increasing incidence of T1DM suggest?
An additional change in some unknown environmental precipitant, e.g. diet, viruses, hygiene, toxins
When do symptoms occur in T1DM, with regard to beta cells?
When approx 90% of beta cells are destroyed
What are children with T1DM at increased risk of?
Other autoimmune disease, e.g. coeliac, thyroid
What does treatment of T1DM require?
Insulin injections 2-4+ times a day, or delivered by pump in continuous subcutaneous injection
Give 2 examples of rapid acting insulins
- Insulin lispro
- Insulin aspart
Why are insulin lispro and insulin aspart rapid acting?
Due to a change in their molecular structure, which prevents polymerisation into inactive hexamers following SC injection
Give 2 examples of long acting insulins
- Insulin glargine
- Insulin detemir
Why is insulin glargine long acting?
Molecular changes shift it’s isoelectric point to result in precipitation and slow dissolution to release bioactive molecules