INCIDENCE OF IDDM IN CHILDREN IN URBAN-POPULATION IN SOUTHERN INDIA

This study was carried out to estimate the incidence of childhood insu lin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in an urban southern Indian pop ulation. A registry for IDDM has been set up in the city of Madras, So uth India. Details of newly diagnosed IDDM children, aged less than 15 years, were analysed retrospectively, for a period of 1991-1994. Prim ary sources were government and service hospitals, large diabetes clin ics and secondary sources were diabetes camp, private diabetologists a nd endocrinologists. A capture-recapture method was used and the estim ate of case in the population (1991 census) was calculated. Incidence (case/100 000) was calculated in the total group and then for boys and girls separately. The incidence for the 4 year period was 10.5/100000 /year (CI 5.0). The corresponding values for boys and girls were 12.6 +/- 11 and 9.6 +/- 4.7 respectively. The peak incidence was between 10 and 12 years. This is the first population based incidence data from India and showed that the incidence of childhood IDDM is not low in ur ban children. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.