Tackling the global diabetes burden: will screening help?

摘要

Worldwide, cases of type 2 diabetes have doubled from nearly 150 million in 1980 to almost 350 million today,1 and effective strategies to reduce the burden of disease are greatly needed. A large and highly variable proportion of cases are undiagnosed,2 and in view of the available evidence-based treatments,3 early detection through diabetes screening is worth careful consideration. Diabetes screening and diagnosis can be done with relative ease, which further escalates popular support for wide-scale screening. However, these compelling arguments overlook the screening costs, potential harms, and lack of clear evidence that screening improves health outcomes compared with current routine clinical diagnosis. In The Lancet, Rebecca Simmons and colleagues report their findings from the ADDITION study, the most earnest attempt to date to try to settle the diabetes screening quandary.