Authors: Daniel J Moore, Natasha I Leibel, William Polonsky, and Henry Rodriguez
Abstract
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a complex, chronic autoimmune disease that affects over 1.6 million people in the United States. It is now understood that T1D may be undetected for many years while the disease progresses quietly without producing symptoms. T1D can be identified through diabetes-related autoantibody screening and staged accordingly, enabling healthcare providers to identify high-risk individuals in the early stages of the disease and either provide a stage-specific intervention or offer clinical trial opportunities to preserve beta cell function and anticipate the onset of clinical T1D. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines currently do not exist for routine diabetes-related autoantibody screening of individuals at risk of developing T1D or of the general population. The purpose of this article is to help clinicians acquire an understanding of the rationale and protocols recommended for identifying patients at risk of developing T1D and monitoring such patients for autoimmune markers and progression of disease from Stage 1 to Stage 3 (clinical disease).