Clinical characteristics and cardiovascular risk profile in children and adolescents with latent autoimmune diabetes: Results from the German/Austrian prospective diabetes follow‐up registry

Abstract

Aims: To characterize children and adolescents with latent autoimmune diabetes of the young (LADY), and to assess the utility of classifying individuals as LADYs regarding their cardiovascular (CV) risk factors. Methods: Data from 25,520 individuals (age at diagnosis <18 years) of the Prospective Diabetes Follow-up Registry Diabetes-Patienten Verlaufsdokumentation (DPV) were analyzed. LADY was defined as positivity of ≥one islet autoantibody (iAb+) and an insulin-free interval of ≥6 months upon diabetes diagnosis. LADYs were compared to iAb+ individuals immediately requiring insulin ("immunologically confirmed" type 1 diabetes, T1DM), iAbÀ/InsÀ individuals ("classical" T2DM) and to those clinically defined as T2DM (iAbs not measured). Results: Clinical characteristics of LADYs (n = 299) fell in between those with T1DM (n = 24,932) and T2DM (iAbÀ/InsÀ, n = 152) or suspected T2DM (iAB not measured, n = 137). Stratifying LADYs according to their clinical diagnosis Nanette C. Schloot and Reinhard W. Holl contributed equally to this work.