A Triamcinolone-glucose Tolerance Test in the Early Diagnosis of Diabetes

Abstract

A glucose tolerance test with the prior administration of triamcinolone (8 mg. at eleven and at one hour preceding glucose) was performed in two groups, (1) a control group of 163 normal individuals having no diabetic antecedents; and (2) a group of 301 “clinically prediabetic” patients so classified on obstetrical grounds orbecause both parents were diabetic, with a previously normal glucose tolerance test. Abnormal triamcinolone curves were found in 1.8 per cent of the control group, an additional 1.8 per cent were “suspicious,” contrasting with 80 per cent abnormal and 11.6 per cent “suspicious” curves in the clinically prediabetic group. A comparison of this test with the standard glucose tolerance, the tolbutamide or the glucose-cortisone test, reveals that the triamcinolone test had a higher correlation with the clinical findings; also, the disadvantages attributed to the glucose-cortisone test did not occur.