OBJECTIVES: This study was to examine the prevalence and economic burden of inpatients with diabetes and/or related complications from Tongji hospital in Wuhan China.   METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis focused on hospitalization costs and complications for all patients diagnosed with diabetes and administered in Wuhan Tongji hospital in China from June 2007 to December 2007. All information of patient demographic characters, clinical and costs were collected for the analysis. The descriptive statistics was used to describe patients' demographic characters, duration of the diseases and treatment costs.   RESULTS: There were total of 295 inpatients were included in the study. The mean age of patients was 51.6±16.0 years (range 11-87 years), 53.56% were male. The diabetes durations (±SD) was 5.75±6.04 years. 13.56% were type 1 diabetes, and 86.44% were type 2 diabetes. The mean hospital stay (±SD) were 11.99 days (±0.54), and mean of hospitalization costs (±SD) were USD 876.6 (±39.4) (1US$=7.6 RMB). The patients with no complication, micro vascular complications, macro vascular complications or both were 10.20%, 30.27%, 8.16%, and 51.36% respectively. Peripheral neuropathy (69.2%) and hyperlipidemia (64.1%) were of the highest prevalence among all the complications, and diabetic foot ulcer was the expensive complication with the highest treatment costs (USD657). The costs of tests and medications accounted for 27% and 26% of total hospitalization expenses. Anti–diabetes drugs, complication treatments and other drugs were of 37.7%, 52.8%, and 9.4% respectively in the medication costs.   CONCLUSIONS: Most of hospitalized patients had diabetes complications. Diabetic complications contributed to a substantial economic burden for the patients and society. It implied the urgent need for healthcare policy makers to address this issue by adopting effective measures toward prevention and control of diabetes and its complications.