The increasing proportion of patients with type 2 diabetes converting to insulin therapy

Research has shown that patients with type 2 diabetes benefit from intensive treatment to improve glycaemic control. We aimed to see what proportion of patients treated with oral hypoglycaemic agents (OHAs) convert to insulin therapy and whether this has increased over time.

Using data from the General Practice Research Database the number and proportion of OHA‐treated patients aged 45+ starting insulin in 1993, 1997 and 2000 were calculated.

In 1993, 3.61% of OHA‐treated patients (95% CI: 2.90, 4.32) started insulin compared with 4.50% (95% CI: 3.81, 5.25) in 1997 and 6.12% (95% CI: 5.40, 6.90) in 2000. There was a statistically significant increase in the proportion of patients converting to insulin between 1997 and 2000. The percentage increase in the proportion converting to insulin in 1997 compared with 2000 was almost double that of the period 1993/1997. There was a 2.6‐fold increase in the absolute number of patients converting to insulin in 2000 compared with 1993.

The study demonstrates that an increasing proportion of patients is being converted to insulin. These data from the UK provide a quantifiable measure of how the workload of specialist staff has increased in recent years. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.