HbA1C in Management of Type II Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross-sectional Survey of Indian Physicians.

OBJECTIVES

Hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) estimation is the standard and commonly used method for diagnosis and monitoring of diabetes therapy. We conducted a questionnaire based survey to understand the Indian physician's adherence to HbA1C for effectively managing Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients and its influence on the decision making process.

METHODS

A validated questionnaire comprising of 10 questions was administered to physicians/endocrinologists at the 44th Annual Conference of RSSDI-2016, Hyderabad. The questions of the survey were designed to understand average cutoff HbA1C level for physicians to start the mono-therapy or combination therapy with or without insulin along with preferred class of Oral anti-diabetic drugs (OAD) in Indian T2DM patients.

RESULTS

41% physicians selected HbA1C level in between 7.0-7.4% to start mono-therapy while 94.5% chose metformin as the first line OAD. In metformin uncontrolled patients, 56.8% responders chose to start a DPP4 inhibitor. To initiate dual therapy 42.9% responders chose HbA1c level of 8.0-8.4% while for triple therapy 37.1% responders selected HbA1c level of 9.0-9.4%.

CONCLUSION

This survey shows the management patterns of T2DM patients by Indian physicians are in line with western guidelines especially AACE. Though guidelines do not offer stringent recommendation on first/second add-on class of OADs, DPP4i emerged as preferred choice for mono-therapy in metforminintolerant patients and as first add-on in patients uncontrolled on metformin alone.