Using Hemoglobin A1C as a Predicting Model for Time Interval from Pre-Diabetes Progressing to Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: The early identification of subjects at high risk for diabetes is essential, thus, random rather than fasting plasma glucose is more useful. We aim to evaluate the time interval between pre-diabetes to diabetes with anti-diabetic drugs by using HbA1C as a diagnostic tool, and predicting it using a mathematic model. METHODS: We used the Taipei Medical University Affiliated Hospital Patient Profile Database (AHPPD) from January-2007 to June-2011. The patients who progressed and were prescribed anti-diabetic drugs were selected from AHPPD. The mathematical model used to predict the time interval of HbA1C value ranged from 5.7% to 6.5% for diabetes progression. RESULTS: We predicted an average overall time interval for all participants in between 5.7% to 6.5% during a total of 907 days (standard error, 103 days). For each group found among 5.7% to 6.5% we determined 1169.3 days for the low risk group (i.e. 3.2 years), 1080.5 days (i.e. 2.96 years) for the increased risk group and 729.4 days (i.e. 1.99 years) for the diabetes group. This indicates the patients will take an average of 2.49 years to reach 6.5%. CONCLUSION: This prediction model is very useful to help prioritize the diagnosis at an early stage for targeting individuals with risk of diabetes. Using patients' HbA1C before anti-diabetes drugs are used we predicted the time interval from pre-diabetes progression to diabetes is 2.49 years without any influence of age and gender. Additional studies are needed to support this model for a long term prediction.