Fasting glucose of patients from public health care in the southern region of São Paulo: Correlation with glycated hemoglobin and lipid levels

Abstract

Introduction: Fasting glucose is a test used for monitoring diabetes mellitus, as well as its screening and diagnosis. The objective of this study was to evaluate fasting glucose results and their correlation with glycated hemoglobin and lipids. Methods: Cross-sectional study, involving 77,581 patients, attended in 2014. Results: The majority of the patients are women (65%). The age of the patients ranged from 18 to 115 years (mean of 53 ± 15.5). The agreement between fasting glucose and glycated hemoglobin was moderate (kappa = 0.416); however, it was substantial for the levels used for the diagnosis of diabetes (kappa = 0.689) and poor for pre-diabetes (kappa = 0.188). Fasting glucose ≥ 100 mg/dL was observed in 41.1% of the patients and 61.5% present glycated hemoglobin ≥ 5.7%. Lipid abnormalities are likeliest in patients with elevated fasting glucose. From those 14,241 individuals that had fasting glucose ≥ 126 mg/dL, the microalbuminuria test was performed in only 883 (6.2%) patients, with abnormal results in 201 (22.8%). Conclusions: The high frequency of fasting glucose with abnormal results may reflect the high proportion of exams performed by individuals with diagnosis of diabetes, to evaluate their glycemic control. The low frequency of requests for microalbuminuria tests in those with probable diagnosis of diabetes reflects the little attention paid for the screening of chronic complications of diabetes. It calls attention the high frequency of dyslipidemia in those individuals, highlighting the fact that this is a population with high cardiovascular risk.