Exploring the factors associated with lipohypertrophy in insulin-treated type 2 diabetes patients in a tertiary care hospital in Mumbai, India

Relationship Between Lipohypertrophy, Glycemic Control, and Insulin Dosing: A Systematic Meta-Analysis

Background: Lipohypertrophy is a common complication in patients with diabetes receiving insulin therapy. There is a lack of consensus regarding how much lipohypertrophy affects diabetes management. Our study aimed to assess the potential correlation between lipohypertrophy and glycemic control, as well as insulin dosing in patients with diabetes. Methods: We performed a systematic review followed by a meta-analysis to collect data about glycemic control and insulin dosing in diabetic patients with and without lipohypertrophy. To identify relevant studies published in English, we searched medical databases (MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, and CENTRAL) from 1990 to January 20, 2023. An additional hand-search of references was performed to retrieve publications not indexed in medical databases. Results of meta-analyses were presented either as prevalence odds ratios (pORs) or mean differences (MDs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). This study was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42023393103). Results: Of the 5540 records and 240 full-text articles screened, 37 studies fulfilled the prespecified inclusion criteria. Performed meta-analyses showed that patients with lipohypertrophy compared with those without lipohypertrophy were more likely to experience unexplained hypoglycemia (pOR [95% CI] = 6.98 [3.30-14.77]), overall hypoglycemia (pOR [95% CI] = 6.65 [1.37-32.36]), and glycemic variability (pOR [95% CI] = 5.24 [2.68-10.23]). Patients with lipohypertrophy also had higher HbA1c (MD [95% CI] = 0.55 [0.23-0.87] %), and increased daily insulin consumption (MD [95% CI] = 7.68 IU [5.31-10.06]). Conclusions: These results suggest that overall glycemic control is worse in patients with lipohypertrophy than in those without this condition.

Lipohypertrophy prevalence and its associated risk factors in insulin-treated patients with type 2 diabetes in North Borneo, Malaysia

Background

Insulin-treated diabetes patients are at high risk of developing lipohypertrophy, which can negatively impact treatment outcomes. Early detection of lipohypertrophy is crucial to preventing blood glucose fluctuation. Unfortunately, this clinical issue is often overlooked by nurses, causing the development of vascular complications, which leads to an increase in the morbidity and mortality of the type 2 diabetes mellitus population.

Objective

This study was conducted to identify lipohypertrophy prevalence and to establish the association between the presence of lipohypertrophy and its associated risk factors, including years on injection, total injection in a day, total insulin unit per day, often change needle, insulin injection site and move to a different area.

Methods

This cross-sectional study included 128 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who received insulin therapy in an outpatient diabetic clinic. Questionnaires on socio-demographic and lipohypertrophy-associated risk factors were distributed among patients, and lipohypertrophy-assessment was done using a checklist. Descriptive statistics and Pearson Chi-square were used for statistical analysis.

Results

The prevalence of lipohypertrophy was 51.6% (95% CI: 42.6, 60.5). Swelling on fatty tissue (46.1%) exhibited the highest percentage of lipohypertrophy features during the assessment. Pearson Chi-Square revealed a significant relationship between the presence of LH and BMI categories (χ2 = 10.059, df = 3, p = 0.018), duration of injection (χ2 = 15.001, df = 3, p = 0.002), frequency of needle replacement (χ2 = 9.525, df = 3, p = 0.023) and rotation of injection site (χ2 = 5.914, df = 1, p = 0.015).

Conclusion

The high prevalence of lipohypertrophy indicates a need for a prevention strategy. Thus, nurses should play an important role in educating patients regarding the proper administration of insulin injections and performing a routine lipohypertrophy assessment and health education on the correct method of insulin injection.

Gender Differences in Prevalence and Clinical Correlates of Lipohypertrophy in Insulin-Exposed Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

PURPOSE

The purpose of this systematic review was to assess potential gender differences in prevalence and clinical relevance of insulin-related lipohypertrophy (LH).

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Five electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, CNKI, Wanfang and VIP) were systematically searched for studies, from inception to 1st Sep 2022, on the prevalence of insulin-related LH. The eligibility of articles was independently screened, and the included studies were evaluated using standardized quality assessment tools.

RESULTS

A total of 22 studies mentioned the LH prevalence in different genders, of which two are about gestational diabetes; therefore, 20 studies were eventually included, providing data on 6238 patients. The prevalence of LH varied from 30.26% to 72.54%. Ten studies (4392 patients) were conducted with the adult diabetes patients of different genders over the age of 18, the total prevalence rate of LH was 51.73%, the LH prevalence in male gender was from 41.94% to 68.57% and the rate of the total population was 54.89% (2046 patients); The LH prevalence in female gender was from 33.18% to 70% and the rate of the total population was 48.98% (2346 patients), and the prevalence of LH was significantly different between male and female gender (P<0.001). Interestingly, only one study (n=1227) showed that there were dramatic differences between different genders (P<0.001), the subjects were T2DM patients, the LH prevalence rate of male vs female was 70.52% (299/424) VS 52.18% (419/803), while the other studies either only include T1DM or both T1DM and T2DM.

CONCLUSION

The evidence shows that the results of gender differences in the LH prevalence are inconsistent with different types of DM. Probably, there is no gender differences in the LH prevalence in adult patients with T1DM, but it has a gender difference between male and female in T2DM. More strictly designed clinical studies are needed to further verify and reveal the underlying mechanisms.

A meta-analysis and meta-regression on the prevalence of lipohypertrophy in diabetic patients on insulin therapy

AIMS OF THE STUDY

This study aimed to assess the prevalence of lipohypertrophy (LH) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients on insulin therapy and identify factors influencing the prevalence rates through a meta-analysis and meta-regression.

METHODS

Databases of PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar were screened from inception to 20th Aug 2020. Data on prevalence was transformed using the logit transformation for pooling the proportions using the DerSimonian-Laird meta-analysis model. Random-effects meta-regression analysis was performed to assess the influence of the following moderators on the pooled prevalence: male gender, mean age, type of DM, DM duration, duration of insulin therapy, needle re-users, rotation of injection site, HbA_1c, insulin dose, ≥8mm needle users and mean number of injections/day.

RESULTS

Forty-five studies were included. LH was diagnosed by observation and palpation by all studies. On meta-analysis of data from 26,865 participants, the overall prevalence of LH was found to be 41.8% (95% CI: 35.9% to 47.6%). On region-wise analysis, pooled prevalence of LH in Europe was 44.6% (95% CI: 37.5% to 51.8%) in Africa was 34.8% (95% CI: 16.9% to 52.8%) and in Asia was 41.3% (95% CI: 27.2% to 55.3%). The pooled prevalence of LH in studies only on type 1 and type 2 DM patients was 39.9% (95% CI: 28.3% to 51.6%) and 45.9% (95% CI: 29.5% to 62.4%) respectively. Only insulin duration was found to significantly influence the prevalence of LH on meta-regression.

CONCLUSION

Our study indicates that the prevalence of LH in DM patients on insulin therapy is estimated to be 41.8%. The longer the duration of insulin therapy, the higher is the prevalence of LH.