Clinical status of Ethiopian diabetic patients after 20 years of diabetes.

By January 1990, over a period of 14 years, the Diabetic Clinic at Yekatit 12 Hospital, Addis Ababa had registered 1699 diabetic patients, of whom 204 were first diagnosed in or before 1969. Of these, 68 are known to have died after 11 to 36 years of diabetes (29% in renal failure), and 69 have been lost to follow-up for 3 or more years. Of the 121 who had been diabetic at least 20 years when last seen, 67 are attending, 18 are lost to follow-up, and 36 have died. Of these 121, 36.4% were known to have neuropathy, 29.8% nephropathy, and 45.5% retinopathy. Only 7 (5.8%) were Type 1 patients compared with 18.8% of the whole diabetic clinic, and most were obese Type 2 diabetic patients from Addis Ababa itself. Most of the 67 still attending after 20 to 34 years of diabetes are independent and fully employed, suggesting that the prognosis of diabetes may not be as dismal as has been generally reported from African countries. However, the survivors were mainly economically better-off Type 2 diabetic patients from the capital.