Incidence of infections in hospitalized subjects with diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Background: The risk of infection is higher in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) compared to those without DM and significantly affects morbidity and mortality when these patients are admitted to a hospital. Hence, this study was undertaken to determine the type of infections, presentation of illness and to correlate with the severity of diabetes. Method: We studied 115 patients with DM (60 males) admitted in acute medical ward of our Institute with subacute, acute and chronic illnesses in all of them. Blood glucose and glycosylated haemoglobin were (HbA1c) determined by the standard methods. The type of organisms isolated from blood/urine/ pus /sputum and drug sensitivity pattern was determined. Results: Coronary artery disease (CAD) was seen in 22.6%, retinopathy in 2.6% and nephropathy in 9.6% of cases. Eighty six of the 115 patients (75%) had infections. Of these, acute, subacute and chronic presentation were seen in 67, 12 and 7 patients respectively; 76 had community acquired infections and nosocomial infection were seen in 10 cases. Pulmonary infections were most common (29.1%) followed by urinary tract infection (26.7%). Of the 86 patients with infection 9 had HbA1c 10%. The mean HbA1c in patients with sepsis/multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MoDS) was 11.3 ±2.8% as against 8.4% ± in the non sepsis group. Conclusion: We observed that infections were a common cause of hospital admissions in patients with uncontrolled DM.