Comorbidities and complications in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: Retrospective analyses of J-DREAMS, an advanced electronic medical records database

Aims To investigate the prevalence of comorbid conditions/complications among Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a real-world setting. Methods We performed retrospective analyses of a large-scale database directly linked to electronic medical records, J-DREAMS (Japan Diabetes compREhensive database project based on an Advanced electronic Medical record System), to determine the prevalence of clinically significant comorbid conditions/complications among Japanese patients with T2DM aged ≥ 20 years with ≥ 1 clinical encounter at a referral center between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2019. Results Data were available for 10,151 patients (39.2% female). The mean age and T2DM duration were 66.0 years and 16.1 years, respectively. Only 0.5% had isolated T2DM, 6.6% had one comorbid condition/complication, and the remainder had multiple comorbid conditions/complications. Dyslipidemia (84.7%) and hypertension (75.1%) were the most common, followed by chronic kidney disease (35.4%), retinopathy (23.1%), and cardiovascular diseases (22.1%). Overall, 36.0% of patients were overweight/obese (body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m 2 ) and 18.6% had a history of neoplasms. The prevalence of comorbid conditions/complications tended to increase with advancing age and duration of T2DM. Conclusions We revealed a high prevalence of comorbid conditions/complications, including chronic kidney and cardiovascular diseases, in Japanese patients with T2DM.