Objective: Children identified with stage 1 type 1 diabetes are at high risk for progressing to stage 3 (clinical) diabetes and require accurate monitoring. Our aim was to establish continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) metrics that could predict imminent progression to diabetes.
Research design and methods: In the Autoimmunity Screening for Kids study, 91 children who were persistently islet autoantibody positive (median age 11.5 years; 48% non-Hispanic White; 57% female) with a baseline CGM were followed for development of diabetes for a median of 6 (range 0.2-34) months. Of these, 16 (18%) progressed to clinical diabetes in a median of 4.5 (range 0.4-29) months.
Results: Compared with children who did not progress to clinical diabetes (nonprogressors), those who did (progressors) had significantly higher average sensor glucose levels (119 vs. 105 mg/dL, P < 0.001) and increased glycemic variability (SD 27 vs. 16, coefficient of variation, 21 vs. 15, mean of daily differences 24 vs. 16, and mean amplitude of glycemic excursions 43 vs. 26, all P < 0.001). For progressors, 21% of the time was spent with glucose levels >140 mg/dL (TA140) and 8% of time >160 mg/dL, compared with 3% and 1%, respectively, for nonprogressors. In survival analyses, the risk of progression to diabetes in 1 year was 80% in those with TA140 >10%; in contrast, it was only 5% in the other participants. Performance of prediction by receiver operating curve analyses showed area under the curve of ≥0.89 for both individual and combined CGM metric models.
Conclusions: TA140 >10% is associated with a high risk of progression to clinical diabetes within the next year in autoantibody-positive children. CGM should be included in the ongoing monitoring of high-risk children and could be used as potential entry criterion for prevention trials.
© 2022 by the American Diabetes Association.