European Diabetes Working Party for Older People 2011 clinical guidelines for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Executive summary

Abstract

Aim: The Clinical Guidelines provide an opportunity to summarise the interpretation of relevant clinical trial evidence for older people with diabetes. They are intended to support clinical decisions in older people with diabetes and the primary focus is enhancing high quality diabetes care by the use of best available evidence.

Methods: The principles used for developing the recommendations are drawn from the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Using SIGN 50, the Guidelines developer's handbook, each reviewer evaluated relevant and appropriate studies which have attempted to answer key clinical questions identified by the Working Party. Searches were generally limited to English language citations over the previous 15 years but the wide experience and multinational nature of the Working party ensured that citations in Italian, French Spanish, and German were considered if relevant. All relevant published articles were identified from the following databases: Embase, Medline/PubMed, Cochrane Trials Register, Cinahl, and Science Citation. Hand searching of 13 key major peer-reviewed journals was undertaken by two reviewers and included the Lancet, Diabetes, Diabetologia, Diabetes Care, Diabetes and Metabolism, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Results: Key evidenced-based recommendations were made in 18 clinical domains of interest and Good Clinical Practice points identified. A glucose-lowering algorithm has been provided for frail older patients with diabetes.

Conclusion: We have provided an up-to-date evidenced-based approach to practical clinical decision-making for older adults with type 2 diabetes of 70 years and over. We have included a user-friendly set of recommendations to aid clinical decision-making in primary, community-based and secondary care settings.