International Diabetes Federation (IDF), 2017

The most recent “Clinical practice recommendations for managing type 2 diabetes in primary care guidelines” from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) seeks to summarise current evidence around optimal management of people with type 2 diabetes. The publication is intended to be a decision support tool for general practitioners, hospital-based clinicians and other primary healthcare clinicians working in diabetes. The IDF recommends that clinicians from all over the world use the guidelines for optimal management of type 2 diabetes in their clinical settings.

Relevant to the myPOC audience, the guidelines recommend screening people with risk factors for diabetes, such as age above 40 to 45 years, obesity, increased waist circumference, hypertension and family history of diabetes, and urge use of HbA1c as the diagnostic test, since it will also be necessary to decide treatment and monitor its effectiveness.

The guideline also goes onto recommend glucose monitoring for diabetes patients using insulin, during treatment adjustment, acute illness or as an education tool for self-care.

Additional tests are recommended, for example, the guideline flags that low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol should be monitored in case of risk for cardiovascular disease and screening for diabetic nephropathy is recommended via an albumin creatinine ratio (ACR) test every year.

The full guidelines can be accessed here.

COL-08882 11/2021