Screening for diabetes

1. 1. Early detection of diabetes mellitus is important for prompt institution of therapy and prevention of further progression of the disease. 2. 2. Experience with diabetes detection has demonstrated programs to be feasible and capable of being administered by many agencies and groups. A major drawback, however, has been the lack of standardization of screening tests and their interpretation. 3. 3. A brief discussion of the diagnostic aspects of diabetes mellitus is presented, since the final success of a screening program depends upon proper interpretation of the laboratory results. 4. 4. It is demonstrated that through the proper use of sensitivity and specificity measures, a screening test can be adapted to the needs of the program. 5. 5. Preliminary results in a diabetes-screening evaluation program are given as examples of methods of evaluating screening tests.