OBJECTIVE: We compared the incidence of severe hypoglycemia episodes with therapy with multiple doses of insulin (MDI) and after changing to pump (CSII). PATIENTS AND METHODS: 7 T1DM patients with 14 years median and median duration of diabetes of 8 years. We analyzed insulin requirement (U/kg/day), BMI (Kg/m²), HbA1c (normal range: 3.5-6.7%) one year before and one year after changing therapy. The severe hypoglycemia episodes decreased from 1.3 to 0 episodes/patient/year; p = 0.00). The insulin requirement decreased from 1.33 ± 0.26 U/Kg/day to 0.87 ± 0.17 U/kg/day; p = 0.04 and HbA1c decreased from 8.7 ± 0.7% to 7.8 ± 0.9%; p = 0.05. CONCLUSION: CSII is efficient in decreasing severe hypoglycemia in a subgroup of T1DM using MDI also in Public Health Care System (PHCS) conditions. However, these finding should be reproduced by other Diabetes Care centers and cost studies are necessary to confirm the viability and possibility of this therapy, when necessary, to T1DM patients, which correspond to the majority of these individuals in our country, seeing in the PHCS.
Type 1 diabetes mellitus; Multiple doses of insulin; Insulin pump; Hypoglycaemia; Adolescents
