Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) is an alternative to multiple daily injection therapy in type 1 diabetes and its use is increasingly common due to the beneficial effects on the glycemic control of the patient.

Aims: To find differences on outcomes of CSII therapy between genders. Patients and methods: Patients on CSII therapy in our department were included in the study and we recorded outcomes regarding the following set points: immediately before beginning of CSII therapy, 12 months after inclusion and in the last appointment. For statistical analysis, we used the Student’s t-test and Pearson correlation, and considered significant a value of P≤0.05.

Results: We studied 64 patients (24 men; 39 women) with a mean HbA1c before initiation of 8.2%±1.4; mean age at the time of placement of 33.6±11.2 years; and mean time of follow up after placement of 2.1±1.9 years. Men had significantly lower levels of HbA1c than women (7.8±0.8% vs 8.4±1.7%, P<0.05). The reduction of HbA1c on the last consultation was not sustained in the group of men, whereas in women there was a persistent tendency to reduction of HbA1c (ΔHbA1c 0.1±1.2% vs ΔHbA1c −1.3±1.6%, P=0.01). There was no significant correlation between duration of diabetes, age, gender and weight change. When adjusted to gender, there was a negative correlation between previous HbA1c and its reduction by the end of follow-up (R=−0.555, P=0.021) and a positive correlation between weight gain and HbA1c reduction at 12 months (R=0.505, P=0.04). There was a significant correlation between duration of diabetes and reduction of HbA1c at 12 months (R=0.600, P=0.01).

Conclusions: In our study we found better results of CSII therapy in women than men, probably reflecting the fact that patients with higher baseline HbA1c benefit most of this diabetes therapeutic modality.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.