For newly-diagnosed diabetes, one-year delay in control of systolic BP unlikely to cause complications
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- For middle-aged patients with newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetes, the impact of a delay in controlling systolic blood pressure depends on the length of the delay, according to a study published online Jan. 4 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Neda Laiteerapong, M.D., from the University of Chicago, and colleagues investigated the harms associated with delays in controlling systolic blood pressure in patients with newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetes. A decision analysis was performed using diabetes complication equations for a hypothetical population of adults aged 50 to 59 years with newly-diagnosed diabetes. Outcome measures included lifetime complication rates, average life expectancy, and quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE).
The investigators found that a lifetime of uncontrolled blood pressure increased complications by 1,855 events per 10,000 patients and reduced QALE by 332 days, compared with a lifetime of controlled blood pressure. For a one-year delay in controlling blood pressure, there was an increase of 14 complication events per 10,000 patients and a two-day decrease in QALE. For a 10-year delay in controlling blood pressure, there was an increase of 428 complication events per 10,000 patients and a 145-day decrease in QALE. For a 20-year delay, QALE decreased by 477 and 142 days when the baseline blood pressure was 160 and 140 mmHg, respectively.
"The harms of delays in controlling systolic blood pressure depend on the duration of the delays in middle-aged adults with newly-diagnosed and prevalent type 2 diabetes," the authors write.
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