Ethnicity and prevalence of scleroderma-like syndrome: a study of Arab and Jewish Israeli insulin-dependent diabetic children.

Scleroderma-like syndrome (SLS) may represent the earliest apparent diabetes complication in insulin-dependent diabetic (IDDM) patients. To evaluate the frequency of SLS and its association with other diabetes-related pathology in our diabetic population, we studied 153 (127 Jewish and 26 Arab) IDDM patients and 45 healthy age- and gender-matched controls (25 Jewish, 20 Arab). The mean age and diabetes duration of the patients were 14.09 +/- 5.1 years and 51 +/- 45 months, respectively. While no diabetes-related pathology was found in the controls, SLS was detected in 47% of all patients (skin, 31.4%; arthropathy, 37.9%; both, 22%), and nephropathy, neuropathy, and retinopathy were present in 10.5%, 5.2%, and 4.6%, respectively. Independent of age, SLS directly correlated with diabetes duration (p < 0.01) and with the presence of either nephropathy or neuropathy (p < 0.009 and p < 0.005, respectively). One or more features of systemic diabetic involvement were present in 22% of patients with SLS, compared to only 7.2% in patients without SLS (p < 0.009). When patients were analyzed according to ethnicity, the frequency of skin involvement and neuropathy were found to be higher among Arab patients, particularly males (p < 0.002 and p < 0.005, respectively), and detection of one was significantly associated with the presence of the other (p < 0.001). In conclusion, our results suggest that SLS is the most common diabetic complication among Jewish and Arab IDDM patients, and its presence may reflect an inherited tendency to develop other serious diabetic complications. Ethnicity (Arab) by itself, particularly when associated with male gender, seems to accelerate neurological and dermatological diabetic involvement.