Comparison of tests for glycated haemoglobin and fasting and two hour plasma glucose concentrations as diagnostic methods for diabetes.

Objective: To compare the ability of tests measuring two hour plasma glucose, fasting plasma glucose, and glycated haemoglobin concentrations in predicting the specific microvascular complications of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.

Design: Cross sectional and longitudinal analysis of the relation between complications and concomitant results of the three tests.

Setting: Gila River Indian Community, Arizona.

Subjects: Pima Indians (cross sectional, n = 960), aged 25 years or above who were not receiving insulin or oral hypoglycaemic treatment at the baseline examination.

Main Outcome Measures: Development of retinopathy and nephropathy.

Results: Cross sectionally, frequency distributions of logarithms of the three sets of results were bimodal, with the prevalence of retinopathy and nephropathy being, respectively, 12.0-26.7 and 3.9-4.2 times as high above as below cut off points which minimised overlap (two hour plasma glucose concentration 12.6 mmol/l; fasting plasma glucose concentration 9.3 mmol/l; glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) concentration 7.8%). Longitudinally, each of the three measures of glycaemia significantly predicted the development of retinopathy (P < 0.0001) and nephropathy (P < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that two hour plasma glucose concentration was superior to fasting plasma glucose concentration (P < 0.05) for prevalent cases of retinopathy, but otherwise no variable had a significant advantage for detecting incident or prevalent cases of either complication.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that determination of glycated haemoglobin or fasting plasma glucose concentrations alone may be acceptable alternatives to measuring glucose concentration two hours after challenge with 75 g glucose for the diagnosis of diabetes.