remission defined

As reported in Endocrine Today online:

The [expert study group*] agreed upon the following definitions for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes:

• Partial remission: hyperglycemia below diagnostic thresholds for diabetes; at least one year’s duration; no active pharmacologic therapy or ongoing procedures.
• Complete remission: normal glycemic measures; at least one year’s duration; no active pharmacologic therapy or ongoing procedures.
• Prolonged remission: complete remission of at least five years duration.

The term remission may be more accurate than the term cure because “current or potential future therapies for type 1 or type 2 diabetes will likely always leave patients at risk for relapse, given underlying pathophysiologic abnormalities and/or genetic predisposition,” the group wrote. “It may make sense to consider prolonged remission of diabetes essentially equivalent to cure.”
The group modeled its consensus definitions on existing terminology for certain malignancies such as cancer.

*The group comprised experts from pediatric and adult endocrinology, diabetes education, transplantation, metabolism, bariatric/metabolic surgery, and (for another perspective) hematology-oncology.
source: Buse JB et al. Diabetes Care. 2009;32:2133-2135.