Estimate of prevalence of glucose intolerance in chronic liver disease. Degree of agreement among some diagnostic criteria.

In patients with chronic liver disease, the reliability of various criteria generally used to diagnose impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes was evaluated. Twenty-one patients with chronic persistent hepatitis, 68 patients with chronic active hepatitis and 57 patients with liver cirrhosis were studied. All subjects underwent an oral glucose tolerance test (75 g). Impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes were diagnosed according to the criteria established by: the National Diabetes Study Group; Fajans and Conn; the European Diabetes Study Group; Deutsche Diabetes Gesellschaft; Kobberling & Creutzfeld criteria 1 and 2; Wilkerson; and the University Group Diabetes Program. The results obtained are in partial agreement with other reported data, showing a high prevalence of both impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes in chronic liver disease, with a positive correlation to the severity of hepatic involvement. However, our results show that the agreement among the criteria most frequently used for diagnosing impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes is still far from satisfactory.