Pediatric Diabetes on the Rise: Trends in Incident Diabetes During COVID-19

A recent spike in cases of pediatric diabetes is observed and it has been assumed that there is a link between COVID pandemic and pediatric diabetes although the effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on pediatric type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are not clear.

OBJECTIVE

The research aimed to identify the trends in incidence of pediatric new-onset T1D and T2D during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

A retrospective chart review was conducted in the research and data such as demographics, anthropometrics, and initial laboratory results from patients with new-onset diabetes ages 0 through 21 years were recorded.

RESULTS

It was observed that the incidence of pediatric T1D increased to 48% during the pandemic. Incidence of pediatric T2D increased by 231% from 2019 to 2020 and the number of cases of pediatric T2D increased significantly more than pediatric T1D. 
Further, patients with T2D were more likely to present in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and mostly severe DKA was observed compared to moderate DKA in the incident cases of pediatric T2D. Moreover, during the pandemic incident cases of T2D accounted for more than one-half of all newly diagnosed pediatric diabetes cases (53%).

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, more number of pediatric T1D and T2D cases as well as an increase in DKA severity in T2D at presentation is observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, incident T2D cases were higher than the incident T1D during the pandemic which suggests a disruption in the pediatric diabetes trends with profound health consequences.

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