CUHK’s culturally tailored predictive tool cuts risks for diabetics in Hong Kong

Researchers from Hong Kong and the United Kingdom have together developed a new predictive model that can estimate the lifetime risk of diabetic patients having a stroke, cancer and premature death, enabling doctors to provide more personalised treatment.

Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) researchers said the model, the first of its kind tailored to the Chinese population, could eventually make healthcare more sustainable, affordable and accessible by accurately identifying patients’ risks.

Diabetes is a major cause of death in Hong Kong, claiming 570 lives in 2023.

It increases the risk of stroke, heart attack, retinopathy, kidney failure and nerve damage.

One in 10 Hongkongers – about 720,000 people – has diabetes and the figure is expected to grow to 900,000 by 2030, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

Professor Juliana Chan Chung-ngor of CUHK’s Department of Medicine and Therapeutics said it was necessary to build a predictive model derived from local data because those developed elsewhere were not accurate for Hong Kong’s population.