Free Screening for Type 1 Diabetes Aims to Diagnose the Disease Earlier
Columbia University Medical Center
Columbia University, as a participant in national research aimed at earlier diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, is offering free screening to qualified relatives of people with the disease.
Anyone eligible for free screening should contact the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at 212-851-5425 or via email (emg25@columbia.edu).
Too often type 1 diabetes is discovered in the emergency room, when a patient has life-threatening complications, such as diabetic ketoacidosis. Prevention research such as the NIH TrialNet Pathway to Prevention Research Study for Relatives of People with Type 1 Diabetes has cut the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis from 30 percent to less than 4 percent.
As a member of TrialNet, Columbia’s Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center offers screening for type 1 diabetes to all qualified relatives of people with the disease. Family members of those with the disease are the best candidates for screening: They have a 15 times greater risk of being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes than a person with no family history.
Robin Goland, MD, co-director of the Berrie Center and the J. Merrill Eastman Professor of Diabetes (in Medicine, Pediatrics, and the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center), is principal investigator at Columbia of TrialNet. “TrialNet’s goal is to identify the disease at its earliest stage, delay progression, and ultimately prevent it,” says Dr. Goland. “We offer screening and clinical trials for every stage of type 1 diabetes and close monitoring for disease progression.”
