Diabetes mellitus

Diabetes mellitus

Anesthetic relevance	High
Anesthetic management	Preoperative HgA1c value Preoperative glucose value Preoperative medication adjustment Insulin administration Post-operative glucose
Specialty	Endocrine
Signs and symptoms	Excessive thirst Polyuria Polydypsia Glucosuria Peripheral neuropathy Ocular degeneration Cardiovascular disease
Diagnosis	HgA1c Fasting glucose
Treatment	Oral anti-hyperglycemics Exogenous insulin administration
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Diabetes is an endocrine, metabolic disorder marked by high levels of blood glucose. Three classifications of diabetics exist:

1. Type 1 Diabetes, where an immune mediated destruction of pancreatic beta cells occurs causing a total reduction in endogenous insulin and thus causing hyperglycemia
2. Type II Diabetes, where patients experience increasing insulin resistance for the level of endogenous insulin thus causing hyperglycemia
3. Gestational Diabetes in which hyperglycemia occurs in the second or third trimester of pregnancy.

The diagnosis of diabetes is made based on fasting blood glucose levels and hemoglobin A1c levels. The diabetic population in the United States is both increasing in incidence and prevalence within the last decade. This disease affects multiple organ systems that have anesthetic implications including cardiovascular health, renal disease, peripheral neurologic function, and gastrointestinal emptying requiring preoperative optimization and intraoperative control.

Cystic fibrosis patients have an acquired form of diabetes as the most common co-morbidity of cystic fibrosis (20% of adolescents and 40-50% of adults).

Anesthetic implications

Preoperative optimization

• No overt indications for case cancellations for poorly controlled diabetes except if patients are in diabetes ketoacidosis (DKA) or hyperosmolar osmotic non-ketotic crisis (HONK)
• Postoperative blood glucose greater than 140 mg/dL is found in as many as 40% of patient undergoing non-cardiac surgery and almost 25% of those patients demonstrate a blood glucose greater than 180 mg/dL during the operative and immediate post-operative period
• Data shows mixed reduction of mortality with good blood glucose control in surgical patients, but a reduction in surgical site infection risk
• Consider case delay alongside surgery team if BG > 250 mg/dL and case is elective and a prothesis or synthetic biofilm will be inserted into the patient during surgery (i.e. prothesis, intraocular lens, joint replacement, graft, etc).
• Obtain pre-operative HgA1c if one has not been obtained via primary care in last 3 months prior to surgery
  • If HgA1c > 8.0 - evidence shows greater incidence of post-operative hyperglycemia during patient recovery

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of diabetes can be made by a variety of ways:

1. Fasting plasma glucose ≥ 126mg/dL
2. Two-hour plasma glucose ≥ 200mg/dL
3. A1C ≥ 6.5 prior to initiating anti-hyperglycemic medications

Epidemiology

The diabetic population in the United States is both increasing in incidence and prevalence within the last decade. According to the 2017 National Diabetes Statistics Report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 10.5% of the U.S. population has diabetes with an estimated 21.4% of those who have the disease are still not diagnosed.