Prevalence of Chronic Complications in Korean Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Based on the Korean National Diabetes Program

Background: The Korean National Diabetes Program (KNDP) cohort study is performing an ongoing large-scale prospective multicenter investigation to discover the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes in Korean patients. This study was performed to examine the prevalence of chronic complications in patients with type 2 diabetes among those registered in the KNDP cohort within the past 4 years. Methods: This study was performed between June 2006 and September 2009 at 13 university hospitals and included 4,265 KNDP cohort participants. Among the participants, the crude prevalence of microvascular and macrovascular diseases of those checked for diabetes-related complications was determined, and the adjusted standard prevalence and standardization of the general population prevalence ratio (SPR) was estimated based on the 2005 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) population demographics. Results: Among the KNDP registrants, 43.2% had hypertension, 34.8% had dyslipidemia, 10.8% had macrovascular disease, and 16.7% had microvascular disease. The SPR of the KNDP registrants was significantly higher than that of the KNHANES subjects after adjusting for demographics in the KNHANES 2005 population. However, with the exception of cardiovascular disease in females, the standardized prevalence for the most complicated items in the survey was significantly higher than that in the KNHANES subjects. Conclusion: The prevalence of macrovascular disease and peripheral vascular disease were significantly higher in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes than in the normal population. However, no significant difference was noted in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in females.