A Danish study shows that intensive and multifactorial treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria increases life expectancy by an eight -year average.The results of this work, coordinated by Peter Gaede, the Slagelse Hospital and the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense, have been published in the Diabetologia magazine.
The main objective of the Steno-2 study, in the words of its main author, is to favor and emphasize the need to intensify the treatment for the various modifiable risk factors in patients with type 2 diabetes with poor prognosis.For at least eight years, intensive therapy with the standard in type 2 diabetics and microalbuminuria was compared.
In previous results of this study, the unprecedented efficacy of structured multifactorial interventions was demonstrated where the development of eye complications, kidneys, legs, heart and brain were reduced by half if compared to conventional treatment.This work has focused on analyzing the differences in life expectancy with the two treatments.The success of the treatment was measured in terms of years of life won, since life expectancy in dibetics 2 with microalbuminuria is not good.
Specialized Centers
In the intensive care group, the treatment was implemented in diabetes specialized centers and coordinated with educational and exercise educational guidelines.Combined treatment focused glucose control, lipids, platelets, hypertension and microalbuminuria.On the contrary, the conventional therapy group was followed by general doctors and which was referred to specialists if the treatment required.
In the follow -up 21 years after the study began, 38 intensive therapy patients died in front of 55 in the conventional therapy group.The patients of the first group survived an average of 8 years more than those of the second.The work authors emphasize that the average time from the first cardiovascular event after the patient's selection was eight years old in the intensive therapy group, which corresponds to eight years without new cardiovascular complications.The risk of eye or renal complications was reduced by 30 and 50 percent.
Taking into account this data, Hans-Henrik Plving, of the National University Hospital of Copenhagen, in Denmark, dares to say that the Steno-2 study demonstrates without a doubt the benefits of intensive and prolonged treatment of type 2 diabetes with microalbuminuria.
In this sense, the authors of the work remember that for years the national and international guides for the improvement of the care of type 2 diabetics have adapted to the experiences and knowledge of the interventions aimed at a single risk factor.Now, there are more data available.With these observations of the 21-year follow-up of the Steno-2 study, early, intensive, individualized and multifactorial care is justified in patients with type 2 diabetes.