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In Australia, access to insulin pump therapy for children with type 1 diabetes is predominantly restricted to families with private health insurance. In an attempt to improve equity, additional subsidised pathways exist which provide pumps to families with reduced financial resources. We aimed to describe the outcomes and experiences of families with children commenced on pumps through these subsidised pathways in Western Australia.
Type 1 diabetes is well-recognised as a continuum heralded by the development of islet autoantibodies, progression to islet autoimmunity causing beta cell destruction, culminating in insulin deficiency and clinical disease. Abnormalities of glucose homeostasis are known to exist well before the onset of typical symptoms.
Technology use, including continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and insulin pump therapy, is associated with improved outcomes in youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D). In 2017 CGM was universally funded for youth with T1D in Australia. In contrast, pump access is primarily accessed through private health insurance, self-funding or philanthropy.
While advancements in the treatment of diabetes continue to rapidly evolve, many of the newer technologies have financial barriers to care, opposing the egalitarian ethos of Banting who sold his patent on insulin for a nominal cost to allow it to be made widely available. Inequity in access to new therapies drives disparity in diabetes burden with potential for these gaps to widen in the future.
The usual output following health consultations from paediatric services is a clinical letter to the referring professional or primary care provider, with a copy sent to the patient's caregiver. There is little research on how patients and caregivers perceive the letter content.
Given limited data regarding the involvement of disadvantaged groups in paediatric diabetes clinical trials, this study aimed to evaluate the socioeconomic representativeness of participants recruited into a multinational clinical trial in relation to regional and national type 1 diabetes reference populations.
For parents and guardians, assisting children/adolescents with severe obesity to lose weight is often a key objective but a complex and difficult challenge. Our aim in this study was to explore parents' (and guardians') perspectives on the challenges they have faced in assisting their children/adolescents with severe obesity to lead a healthy lifestyle.
We sought research experiences of caregivers and their children were enrolled in the Environmental Determinants of Islet Autoimmunity (ENDIA) study.
A 28-year-old man with congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH) was found to be heterozygous for the GNRH1 p.R31C mutation, reported in the literature as pathogenic and dominant. The same mutation was found in his son at birth, but the testing of the infant at 64 days confirmed the hormonal changes associated with minipuberty.
Islet autoantibody screening of infants and young children in the Northern Hemisphere, together with semi-annual metabolic monitoring, is associated with a lower risk of ketoacidosis (DKA) and improved glucose control after diagnosis of clinical (stage 3) type 1 diabetes (T1D). We aimed to determine if similar benefits applied to older Australians and New Zealanders monitored less rigorously.