Diabetes control and complications trial

The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) was a medical study conducted by the United States National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). It significantly changed the management principles of diabetes mellitus from the 1990s onwards. The completed study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993.

A study in the United Kingdom known as the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), released in 1999, found similar results for people with type 2 diabetes. Between the two studies, the treatment of people with diabetes was significantly changed.

Long-term microvascular and neurologic complications cause major morbidity and mortality in patients with diabetes, and is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world. This study examined whether intensive treatment with the goal of maintaining blood glucose concentrations close to the normal range could decrease the frequency and severity of those complications.

A total of 1,441 volunteers with type 1 diabetes were recruited from 29 medical centers in the United States and Canada between 1983 and 1989, and were followed up until 1993. Each were randomly assigned to receive standard therapy or intensive control therapy. Patients with type 2 diabetes were excluded from the study, as were those who had been diagnosed less than one year ago or more than 15 years before.

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