Dia Rem Score to predict bariatric surgery related diabetes cure

Marlene Busko : A new tool, based on four simple clinical measures, called the Dia Rem score, may help identify which obese patients with type 2 diabetes who have bariatric surgery are likely to be "cured" from their diabetes afterward.

These findings, by G Craig Wood, of the Obesity Institute, Geisinger Health System, Danville, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, were published online April 20 in a research letter in JAMA Surgery.

Specifically, the researchers looked at the predictive power of the DiaRem score which is based on age, HbA_1c, insulin utilization, and use of other antiglycemic agents in 407 obese diabetic patients who had Roux-en-Y gastric-bypass surgery.

After undergoing this surgery, half of the 100 patients with the best DiaRem scores (0 to 2) but none of the 33 patients with the worst scores (18 to 22) were cured of their diabetes where cure is defined as HbA_1c <5.7% (complete remission) for at least 5 years, with no antiglycemic-agent use in the past year.

"Bariatric surgery is currently the most effective treatment in reversing insulin resistance in [obese] patients with type 2 diabetes, and now a simple tool based on information that is found in medical records can provide insight into which patients might be cured from their diabetes following this surgery," senior author Annemarie G Hirsch, PhD, MPH, also of Geisinger Health System, told Medscape Medical News in an email.