Overall and Cause-Specific Mortality in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: A Population-Based Cohort Study in Taiwan From 1998 Through 2014.

BACKGROUND

To investigate all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Taiwanese patients with type 1 diabetes.

METHODS

A cohort of 17,203 patients with type 1 diabetes were identified from Taiwan's National Health Insurance claims in the period of 1998-2014. Person-years were accumulated for each individual from date of type 1 diabetes registration to date of death or the last day of 2014. Age, sex, and calendar year standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated with reference to the general population.

RESULTS

In up to 17 years of follow-up, 4,916 patients died from 182,523 person-years. Diabetes (30.15%), cancer (20.48%), circulatory diseases (13.14%), and renal diseases (11.45%) were the leading underlying causes of death. Mortality rate (26.93 per 1,000 person-years) from type 1 diabetes in Taiwan was high, the cause of death with the highest mortality rate was diabetes (8.12 per 1,000 person-years), followed by cancer (5.52 per 1,000 person-years), and circulatory diseases (3.54 per 1,000 person-years). The all-cause SMR was significantly elevated at 4.16 (95% confidence interval, 4.04-4.28), with a greater all-cause SMR noted in females than in males (4.62 vs 3.79). The cause-specific SMR was highly elevated for diabetes (SMR, 16.45), followed by renal disease (SMR, 14.48), chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis (SMR, 4.91) and infection (SMR, 4.59). All-cause SMRs were also significantly increased for all ages, with the greatest figure noted for 15-24 years (SMR, 8.46).

CONCLUSIONS

Type 1 diabetes in both genders and all ages was associated with significantly elevated SMRs for all-cause and mostly for diabetes per se and renal disease.