Incidence of IDDM in children in urban population in Southern India

This study was carried out to estimate the incidence of childhood insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in an urban southern Indian population. A registry for IDDM has been set up in the city of Madras, South India. Details of newly diagnosed IDDM children, aged less than 15 years, were analysed retrospectively, for a period of 1991–1994. Primary sources were government and service hospitals, large diabetes clinics and secondary sources were diabetes camp, private diabetologists and endocrinologists. A capture-recapture method was used and the estimate of case in the population (1991 census) was calculated. Incidence (case/100 000) was calculated in the total group and then for boys and girls separately. The incidence for the 4 year period was 10.5/100 000/year (CI 5.0). The corresponding values for boys and girls were 12.6 ± 11 and 9.6 ± 4.7 respectively. The peak incidence was between 10 and 12 years. This is the first population based incidence data from India and showed that the incidence of childhood IDDM is not low in urban children