OBSERVATIONS Rising Incidence of Type 1 Diabetes in

12-Year trend analysis in children 0–14 years of age Epidemiological studies from all partsof the world have reported increasesin incidence of type 1 diabetes (1). In a 6-year population-based study that con-cluded in 1993 and was published in 1997, the incidence of type 1 diabetes in German children 0–14 years of age was reported to be 11.6 per 100,000 children a year (95 % CI 10.9–12.2) (2). Using the Baden-Wuerttemberg (BW) incidence registry, data regarding 2,525 children with diabetes were analyzed over a 12-year period. Our objective was to determine the most recent trends in the incidence of childhood diabetes in Germany. BW is a federal state in Southwest Germany. The total number of inhabit-ants was 10.4 million at the time of this research, and 1.8 million (16.9%) were younger than 15 years of age. This corre-sponds to 13.3 % of the total child popu-lation in Germany. These population data were drawn from a national census in 1987 and the official yearly update there-after. Patients were registered according to European Diabetes (EURODIAB) Study criteria (3). They were included only if insulin treatment had begun before the 15th birthday and if the manifestation of disease occurred between 1 January 1987 and 31 December 1998. All 31 pediatric departments in BW and 1 diabetes center participated in the study. Registration was done retrospec-tively for the time period between 1 Jan