Newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus, DKA and COVID‐19: causality or coincidence? ‐ A report of 3 cases

Suwanwongse, Kulachanya; Shabarek, Nehad

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), a 2020 pandemic, has resulted in an unexpected loss of lives, quality of life, and economy. The COVID‐19 clinical spectrum varies from asymptomatic to death, and its complications may involve various organs. Notwithstanding, the impact of COVID‐19 on endocrine systems is understudied. Previous coronavirus outbreak such as SARS‐CoV can cause new‐onset diabetes mellitus (DM). However, there were only two previous case reports on newly diagnosed DM in COVID‐19 patients. Here, we described three patients who had newly diagnosed DM associated with COVID‐19. COVID‐19 likely unmasked existing DM by aggravating its metabolic complications rather than causing the new‐onset DM in these patients. However, more research is needed to evaluate if there is a casualty relationship between the development of DM, DKA, and COVID‐19. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.