Age at Onset of Childhood-Onset Type 1 Diabetes and the Development of End-Stage Renal Disease

Abstract

OBJECTIVE—To analyze the impact of age at onset on the development of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) due to diabetic nephropathy in a nationwide population-based cohort with childhood-onset type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A record linkage between two nationwide registers, the Swedish Childhood Diabetes Registry, including 12,032 cases with childhood-onset diabetes, and the Swedish Registry for Active Treatment of Uraemia was performed. Log-rank test was used to test differences between cumulative risk curves of developing ESRD due to diabetic nephropathy in three different strata of age at onset (0–4, 5–9, and 10–14 years). RESULTS—At a maximum follow-up of 27 years, 33 patients had developed ESRD due to diabetic nephropathy and all had a diabetes duration >15 years. In total, 4,414 patients had diabetes duration >15 years, and thus the risk in this cohort to develop ESRD was 33 of 4,414 (0.7%). A significant difference in risk of developing ESRD was found between the youngest (0–4 years) and the two older (5–9 and 10–14 years) age-at-onset strata (P = 0.03 and P = 0.001, respectively). A significant difference in the risk of developing ESRD was also found between children with prepubertal (0–4 and 5–9 years, n = 2,424) and pubertal (10–14 years, n = 2000) onset of diabetes (P = 0.002). No patient with onset of diabetes before 5 years of age had developed ESRD. CONCLUSIONS—With a median duration of 21 years in this population-based Swedish cohort with childhood-onset diabetes, <1% of the patients had developed ESRD due to diabetic nephropathy, and a prepubertal onset of diabetes seems to prolong the time to development of ESRD.