OBJECTIVES: As the prevalence of diabetes increases with age, the development of often severe chronic complications, such as nephropathy is becoming more common. Our aim was to determine the annual health insurance treatment cost of non-insulin-dependent diabetes with renal complications in Hungary.

METHODS: Data were derived from the financial database of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration, for the year 2018. Data analysed included annual patient numbers, case numbers and prevalence of care utilisation per 100.000 population according to age groups and sex. The following health insurance treatment categories were included into our study: general practice care, home care, in- and outpatient care, medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, drugs and medical aids. Patients were identified with the following code of the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision: E1120.

RESULTS: The highest patient numbers were in outpatient care: 4,433 men, 5,387 women, in total 9,820 patients, followed by general practice care (3,627 men, 4,277 women, in total 7,904 patients), and the use of pharmaceuticals (2,857 men, 3,319 women, in total 6,176 patients). Based on patient numbers in pharmaceuticals, prevalence in 100,000 among men was 61.2 patients, among women 65.0, in total 63.2 patients. Prevalence and the number of patients increase dramatically with age: those above 60 account for 82.61%, patients over 70 years account for 52.80% of the patient population. Regarding sex, in outpatient care 45.1% were men, 54.9% were women, while in the use of pharmaceuticals 46.3% were men and 53.7% were women.

CONCLUSIONS: Prevalence of pharmaceutical utilisation showed no major difference between sexes. Apart from the >70-year-old group, the number of male patients is higher, and males also show higher prevalence in all age groups.