Comment on : Zhu et al. Fasting Plasma Glucose at 24–28 Weeks to Screen for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus : New Evidence From China. Diabetes Care 2013; 36:2038–2040

Abstract

The article by Zhu et al. published inDiabetes Care concludes that a fasting plasma glucose (FPG) at 24–28 weeks’ gestation can be used in low-resource regions as a screening test to identify gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in Chinese patients. However, in their experience, a screening protocol using FPG cutoff points of $4.4 and #5.0 mmol/L would fail to identify about 12% of the GDM cases and require a formal oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) to be performed in about half of the pregnant population. These observations contrast with our findings in a circum-Mediterranean population.