Remission phase in childhood diabetes--an investigation of summer campers in Japan.

Abstract

There are various reports on the remission phase related to insulin response, C-peptide response, demand for exogenous insulin, and incidence and duration of remission etc. Recently, the incidence of remission was reported to be 60% in Europe and America, but these data applied to partial and complete remission. In Japan, we have no generally accepted definition of complete and/or partial remission. In order to investigate remission in childhood diabetes, we sent questionnaires to the consulting doctors of 19 local summer camps for Japanese diabetic children in 1981. In this study, the incidence of complete remission was 4.5% in boys and 2.7% in girls. The incidence of remission including partial remission was 19.6%. The age of remission varied from 2 to 17 years. The mean period between diagnosis and the start of remission was 4.4 months. The mean duration of remission was 16.5 months in boys and 10. 1 months in girls, and the maximum duration was 55 months. The main factor leading to remission was strict control of diabetes with insulin immediately following the onset of diabetes mellitus.