The development and validation of the Portuguese risk score for detecting type 2 diabetes and impaired fasting glucose

Abstract

Aims: To develop and validate a non-invasive score for detecting undiagnosed impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in a Portuguese population.

Methods: We used data from 3,374 individuals aged 18-94 years from a Portuguese cross-sectional study. We developed a logistic regression model for predicting IFG/T2DM (diagnosed using fasting glucose). We externally validated the score using data from two cohorts of the EPI-Porto study, cross-sectional (n = 2,131) and data from the 5 year follow-up (n = 1,304).

Results: The final model included age, sex, BMI and hypertension with an area under the ROC curve of 70.1 (95%CI 68.4, 71.7). Using a cut-point which classifies 50% of the EPI-Porto cross-sectional data as high-risk gave sensitivity 73.2% (95%CI 68.5%, 77.6%), specificity 55.5% (53.1%, 57.8%), positive predictive value (PPV) 27.0% (24.3%, 29.8%) and negative predictive value (NPV) 90.2% (88.3%, 92.0%) for IFG/T2DM. Using the same cut-point on the prospective data classified 45% as high-risk; sensitivity 69.1% (63.4%, 74.4%), specificity 63.3% (60.0%, 66.5%), PPV 38.0% (33.9%, 42.4%), and NPV 86.2% (83.3%, 88.8%).

Conclusion: The Portuguese risk score can be used to identify those at high risk of both prevalent undiagnosed and incident IFG/T2DM.