Diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes: What Are Our Objectives?

International agreement is lacking with regard to diagnostic criteria for gestational diabetes and its treatment. Consensus is not possible without agreement on the objectives in making the diagnosis. The most commonly used criteria in North America were validated by their predictive value for the subsequent development of overt diabetes in the years after affected pregnancies. The diagnosis is also deemed by many to be important as a risk factor for adverse perinatal outcome in the present pregnancy. Attempts have been made, in various parts of the world, to derive diagnostic criteria based on pregnancy outcome; unfortunately, these have not been so intensively studied as the standards cited above. There is also a lack of agreement on whether gestational diabetes should be considered a disease or merely a risk factor. In addition, consensus has not been reached on whether population-specific criteria should be used in each location or universally accepted diagnostic thresholds should be applied. Many philosophical questions remain unanswered, and numerous opportunities for investigation present themselves. Many of these are dealt with in this workshop-conference, whereas others remain as goals to be attained.