Patients with decreases in SA levels during hospitalization (group 3) had higher rates of incident hypoglycaemia compared with patients in groups 1 and 2 (21.0% vs. 6.0% and 16.3%, respectively; P < 0.001 for both).
Hospitalized patients with diabetes and low hemoglobin, low albumin or high creatinine levels are at increased risk of developing significant hypoglycemia.
The purpose of this study was to determine the cutoff value of serum albumin (s-alb) that increases the risk of hypoglycemia in patients treated with insulin degludec.
218 patients (mean age 77.4 ± 12.0 years, 63.3% female, mean albumin 3.13 ± 0.32 g/dL), of whom 27.9% had documented hypoglycemia during hospitalization were included.
We identified 17 predictors-glycemic management, age, race, education, waist circumference, medications (insulin, antihypertensive, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, sulfonylurea, biguanide and meglitinide), years since diabetes diagnosis, history of hypoglycemia in the last week, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, serum creatinine, and urinary albumin creatinine ratio-to construct a prediction model for SH (c-statistic=0.782).
Logistic regression showed that both serum albumin [odds ratio (OR) 0.908, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.896-0.919; P < 0.001) and cholesterol (OR 0.938, 95% CI 0.896-0.981; P = 0.005] were significantly associated with incident hypoglycaemia.
According to the guidelines of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy (JSDT) regarding the treatment of diabetes in hemodialysis patients, the target casual plasma glucose level (predialysis blood glucose level) is less than 180-200 mg/dL, the target glycated albumin value is less than 20.0% (less than 24.0% in patients at risk of hypoglycemia).