Mortality in diabetes: a retrospective analysis from a tertiary care hospital in North India

Cause(s) of death in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) admitted to a tertiary care hospital in North India was analysed from classified information in patients' death records and case file. Of the 306652 total admissions from 1991 to 1999, 21584 patients died (7.04%), 592 of whom (355 men and 237 women) had DM (2.7%). Information from 92 patients with diabetes could not be retrieved and six patients with hyperglycemia of short duration (two with gestational DM, three with post-transplant diabetes and one with stress hyperglycemia) were excluded. Of the 494 patients, 456 (92.3%) had T2DM and 38 (7.7%) had T1DM. Four hundred and forty patients had diabetes related mortality: infections (230, 46.5%), cardiovascular events (86, 17.4%), chronic renal failure (CRF) (48, 9.7%), stroke (30, 6%), diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) (15, 3%), hyperosmolar coma (11, 2.2%), and hypoglycemia (5, 1%), while others (54 patients) had diabetes unrelated deaths. Cause of death could not be ascertained in six patients (1.2%). Death was attributed to a single cause in 301 (60.9%), to two causes in 175 (35.4%) and to three or more causes in 12 (2.4%) patients. Analysis of the cause of death in DM versus hospital in-patients in general, showed infection (P<0.02), coronary artery disease (CAD) (P<0.001), and CRF (P<0.001) to be more frequent in diabetes.