Patients with gestational diabetes show different disease progressions and therefore require personalized treatment measures. An international research team led by MedUni Vienna has now identified three subgroups of the disease with different treatment needs. The results of the study, recently published in the prestigious journal "Diabetologia", could improve our understanding of gestational diabetes and significantly advance the development of personalized treatment concepts.
As part of the study, scientists from MedUni Vienna, in collaboration with colleagues from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Padua, analyzed certain data from 2682 women with gestational diabetes (GDM) that had been routinely collected at MedUni Vienna and Charité between 2015 and 2022. Using cluster analyses, a machine learning method, the patients were divided into different groups based on routine parameters such as age, body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy and blood glucose values from an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). "This allowed us to clearly identify three clusters with different treatment requirements," reports study leader Christian Göbl (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, MedUni Vienna).
"We also saw that different pregnancy complications occur at different rates in the individual subgroups." The first subtype includes women with the highest blood glucose levels, a high prevalence of obesity and the highest need for blood glu.
