Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous damage to all countries of the world. Patients with diabetes mellitus are a separate risk group for the consequences of COVID-19, both in the acute and in the long-term period.

Aim: To study change in the structure of mortality among patients with diabetes in the Republic of Uzbekistan during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and Methods: We analyzed the data of the report forms of endocrinological dispensaries for reasons of deaths registered among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in 2020 and compared these indicators with the data of 2019.

Results: In 2020, mortality among patients with diabetes increased 1.5 times compared to 2019 and was 4.3% (compared to 2.8% in 2019). Among the causes of deaths, cardiovascular accidents prevailed: 57.9% in 2020 (48.0% in 2019), cerebrovascular accidents (15.6% in 2020 and 24.2% in 2019), chronic kidney disease (12.0% and 15.1%), gangrene, sepsis (1.2% and 1.8%), the frequency of hyper- and hypoglycemic comas as causes of death was 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively, both in 2019 and in 2020, however, the absolute number increased in 2020. Among the "other" causes of death (12.8% in 2020 and 10.2% in 2019), COVID-19 itself was 53%, pneumonia 17%, pulmonary embolism 1%, oncological diseases 12%, liver cirrhosis 12%.

Conclusions: Despite the fact that COVID-19 caused deaths in 2.9% of patients with diabetes, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant increase in mortality - 1.5 times - among patients with diabetes, mainly due to acute cardiovascular accidents, stroke, as well as accelerating the progression of chronic complications of diabetes, in particular chronic kidney disease.