The prognosis of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and the importance of supervision.

1451 patients with IDDM, onset before 1953 and before the age of 30 were followed until death or until 1976. Survival with diabetes, relative survival and the influence of supervision on survival were examined. It is shown that only 50% of the patients survived more than 30 diabetes years. The patients had an overmortality of more than 600% in relation to age and sex matched non-diabetics. Frequent supervisions in the out-patient clinic reduced as well the overmortality as the prevalence of severe complications significantly.