DEISCHINGER Carola

Sex and Gender Differences in the Prevalence and Outcomes of Comorbidities of Diabetes mellitus and the Optimization of Gender-Specific Treatment Paths

In our modern world, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disorders (CVD) or cancer are a major burden on the patients and health care system resulting in decreased life expectancy as well as quality of life. Gender and sex differences in NCDs in terms of diagnosis, development of complications, comorbidities, treatments and, ultimately, hard outcomes such as life expectancy are insufficiently known and implemented into clinical practice. The thesis at hand is based on a multidisciplinary project between the Gender Medicine Unit (GMU) of the Medical University of Vienna under the supervision of Univ. Prof.in Dr.in Alexandra Kautzky-Willer and the Section of Science of Complex Systems (SSCS) whose aim it is to combine expert knowledge on gender medicine and statistics to investigate gender medicine aspects in a database of hospital diagnoses (45 000 000 diagnoses) of the whole Austrian population from 2003 to 2014. It is hypothesized that women are less likely to have access to specialized health care and to be more vulnerable in respect to certain comorbidities of e.g. diabetes mellitus which is especially prone to result in less favorable outcomes. 

Aims & Objectives:

• Aim 1: Specifying patient cohorts, relevant outcomes and time-ordering of diabetes mellitus and its associated comorbidities
• Aim 2: Assessment of the effect of sex- and gender-related differences on health outcomes and the development of comorbidities in patients with diabetes mellitus
• Aim 3: Gender-specific optimization of comorbidity risk management and treatment paths of patients with diabetes mellitus

Research Hypothesis:
Females are more affected by the diagnosis diabetes mellitus in terms of comorbidities, health outcomes, life expectancy and quality of life.

Methods and Skills:

big data analysis; clinical research

Publications:

Leutner M, Matzhold C, Bellach L, Deischinger C, Harreiter J, Thurner S, Klimek P, Kautzky-Willer A. Diagnosis of osteoporosis in statin-treated patients is dose-dependent. Ann Rheum Dis 78: 1706-1711, 2019