The rising incidence of type 1 diabetes in the northeastern part of Thailand.

To determine the incidence of T1DM in children under 15 years in 19 provinces in northeast Thailand.Data of new cases of T1DM during 10 years between 1996 and 2005 were collected retrospectively by a mail survey from 275 hospitals in northeast Thailand.Three hundred forty cases, 134 (39.4%) boys and 206 (60.6%) girls were identified. The incidence rate of T1DM was 0.6/100,000/year (95% confidence interval 0.57; 0.71), a two-fold increased from the previous study between 1991 and 1995. More than half of the cases were diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 14 and the incidence rate in girls was 1.5 fold that of boys.Though the increased in incidence rate, the study indicated that the incidence of T1DM in northeast Thailand is still one of the very low incidence rates in the world.