Identifying Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes in Asymptomatic Youth: Should HbA1c Be Used as a Diagnostic Approach?

Because the incidence of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes in children is rising, routine screening of those at risk is recommended. In 2010, the ADA made the recommendation to include hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) as a diagnostic test for diabetes, in addition to the oral glucose tolerance test or fasting plasma glucose. Our objective was to assess the pediatric literature with regard to HbA1c test performance and discuss advantages and disadvantages of use of the test for diagnostic purposes.

HbA1c has a number of advantages, including elimination of the need for fasting, lower variability, assay standardization, and long-term association with future development of diabetes. It also has many drawbacks. It can be affected by a number of non-glycemic factors, including red blood cell turnover, hemoglobinopathies, medications, race, and age. In particular, it performs differently in children compared with adults, generally with lower sensitivity for prediabetes (as low as 0–5% in children vs 23–27% in adults) and lower area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) (0.53 vs 0.73 for prediabetes), and it has lower efficacy at a higher cost, compared with other tests of glycemia. Finally, HbA1c may perform very differently across diverse populations according to race/ethnicity; in Chinese populations, the proportion of individuals classified with prediabetes based on HbA1c predominates compared with IFG (77% for HbA1c vs 27.7% for IFG), whereas in US populations, it is the opposite (24.8% for HbA1c vs 80.1% for FPG).

HbA1c is controversial because although it is convenient, it is not a true measure of glycemia. The interpretation of HbA1c results requires a nuanced understanding that many primary care physicians who are ordering the test in greater numbers do not possess. Alternative markers of glycemia may hold promise for the future but are not yet endorsed for use in practice. Further studies are needed to determine appropriate thresholds for screening tests and the long-term impact of screening and identification.