Effects of gestational on perinatal morbidity reassessed: Report of the International Workshop on Adverse Perinatal Outcomes of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, December 3-4, 1992

It was concluded that these questions about the sensitivity, specificity, and cost-effectiveness of efforts to diagnose and treat GDM to prevent adverse perinatal effects cannot be resolved without additional carefully designed studies. Accordingly, a group of investigators is currently devising a plan for a new multicenter, multiethnic, and multinational longitudinal study to measure adverse outcomes over time. These investigators plan to screen a large population of patients, to conceal their glucose tolerance test results from the women's care givers with the exception of test results of patients with diabetes (overt or asymptomatic), and to assess perinatal complications. This protocol will enable the investigators to correlate various degrees of glucose intolerance with perinatal morbidity, without the confounding variables of obstetric and medical intervention, which may change according to the care givers' knowledge of their patients' laboratory values of blood glucose. 'What i see as the bottom line is that in this country and some other parts of the world, we've established a standard of care and widespread screening based on imperfect data,' said Dr. Coustan, who is involved in planning the new protocol. Rather than continue as we are, I think it's appropriate to stop anti obtain more data.'