Descriptive characteristics of group of patients with moderate or severe diabetic acidosis; relation to recovery or death.

Abstract

THE PRESENT study is in essence a systematic characterization of a sample of patients with diabetic acidosis who were observed and treated on a representative alert medical service. Our objective is to record observations on a relatively unselected group of patients with diabetic acidosis, such as one might encounter in any teaching hospital where no special emphasis is placed on the study of such patients. These cases reflect the customary approach to diagnosis and therapy, not necessarily the best approach. We are describing things as they are, not as they might be. The group includes the available cases of moderate or severe acidosis as recorded in a given medical service's hospital charts. Various well-known clinical surveys of diabetic acidosis or coma have appeared in the past. 1 However all of them have followed more or less similar patterns of analysis and have restricted their scope to certain prominent items of interest,