Diagnosing Gestational Diabetes with a Probably Too Simplified Diagnostic Procedure Compared to International Criteria: The Indian Case Study

Diagnostic procedures for the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are not uniformly defined worldwide. We retrospectively applied two diagnostic procedures (i.e., the IADPSG and the Indian) to the same pregnant women in order to compare the clinical characteristics and the prevalence of risk factors for GDM. Overall, 1015 pregnant women were evaluated. GDM was diagnosed in 113 cases (11.1%) by the IADPSG criteria and in 105 cases (10.3%) by the Indian criteria. The women diagnosed with GDM according to the IADPSG criteria had higher pre-gestational BMIs, higher previous macrosomia rates, higher first trimester fasting blood glucose levels, higher fasting and 1 h glucose levels after glucose load at OGTT, and lower 2 h glucose levels at OGTT compared with the women with GDM diagnosed according to the Indian criteria. Only 49.6% of the women who were diagnosed by the IADPSG criteria were also diagnosed with GDM by the Indian diagnostic criteria. For 47.8% of the women who were diagnosed by the IADPSG criteria, a diagnosis of GDM was missed by applying the Indian diagnostic criteria. Interestingly, 49 women were diagnosed with GDM by the Indian criteria but were normal according to the IADPSG criteria. Different diagnostic criteria could lead to different GDM detection rates with different practical approaches.