Dental teams could help detect undiagnosed diabetes

Dental Tribune International

Wed. 25. September 2024

save

BIRMINGHAM, England: Diabetes is one of the most common chronic conditions in Europe and is strongly associated with periodontitis. An estimated one in three people with diabetes are undiagnosed, totalling more than one million undiagnosed patients in the UK alone. Seeking to help improve diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes in such patients, researchers in the UK are working on a new study, called INDICATE-2, to validate routine diabetes screening during oral health check-ups.

The study, being conducted by researchers at the University of Birmingham, has received funding from Haleon, a global consumer health company, and the support of the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre.

“This exciting collaboration with Haleon will allow us to determine the actual prevalence of prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes within a larger, more representative population sample and assess the feasibility of scaling this approach nationally. It will explore the patient journey and identify barriers or challenges in the care pathway,” co-researcher Dr Zehra Yonel, a clinical lecturer in periodontics in the School of Dentistry at the University of Birmingham, said in a press release.

In a 2023 study, the Birmingham researchers collaborated with others from the universities of Leicester and Oxford in the UK and the University of Greifswald in Germany to develop the Diabetes Risk Assessment in Dentistry Score (DDS), a tool designed to help identify prediabetes and diabetes in dental settings. The DDS was recently used in a pilot study, which was funded by NIHR and Diabetes UK and conducted across 13 dental practices with 805 participants. For participants whose DDS scores indicated that they may have prediabetes or diabetes, the haemoglobin A_1c finger prick test was administered, and the trial found that nearly 15% of the participants who considered themselves healthy exceeded the UK’s prediabetes or diabetes threshold score on this test.

Based on this pilot study, INDICATE-2 will work with 50 dental practices across England and Scotland to screen more than 10,000 patients and develop a care pathway that could help dental services detect people with undiagnosed diabetes in the UK and refer them for treatment.

Co-lead researcher for INDICATE-2 Dr Iain Chapple, professor of periodontics at the University of Birmingham’s School of Dentistry, said: “This funding from Haleon is very exciting, as it will enable us to validate the two-step model on patients routinely attending dental practices across the UK and test onward referral pathways of high-risk patients to their family doctors for diagnosis and treatment.”

Dr Jason Wong, MBE, chief dental officer for England, said: “It is vitally important that medical and dental care pathways become more joined up, to put patients at the centre of all we do. INDICATE-2 is a great example of a study aimed to try and define one such pathway.”

Adam Sisson, head of research and development in oral health at Haleon, concluded: “We are delighted to be collaborating with the University of Birmingham and NIHR to help support this important scientific research. We hope the findings will underpin a new care pathway aimed at proactively identifying and treating more people with diabetes by leveraging the expertise of oral health professionals. The study will also help to draw further attention to the links between our oral and systemic health.”