Skin diseases in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Aim To evaluate the presence of skin diseases in diabetic children and adolescents and analyse the risk factors involved.Background There are few studies in pediatric population with type 1 diabetes mellitus and these present conflicting resultsSetting and Patients The Department of Pediatrics and Dermatology, University of Chieti, Italy. A group of 146 (86 female, 60 male) children. Their mean age ± SD was 13.9 ± 7.8 (range: 2.1–18.0) years; their duration of disease was 10.7 ± 8.8 (range: 1.5–17.3) years.Results Thirty-six patients showed skin problems: the most frequent disease was skin infection, followed by necrobiosis lipoidica; this last disorder is linked to the presence of microvascular complications.Conclusions The skin problems were more frequent in children with long duration of disease than in patients with a duration less than 7 years. All the patients who had limited joint mobility showed sclerodema. Dermatological evaluation is strongly reccomended in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus.