Objective To explore the situation and causes of misdiagnosed hypoglycemia in China so as to develop some strategies for reducing misdiagnosis.Methods We searched CBMdisc, CMCC, CJFD and VIP (Jan. 1994-Dec. 2003). All the publisled studies about the misdiagnosis of hypoglycemia were collected to analyse their classifications and causes.Results A total of 172 studies involving 1 478 patients met the inclusion criteria. The studies were either case reports or clinical reviews. The 1 478 cases were misdiagnosed as 31 sorts of diseases, mainly including stroke (71.18%), transient ischemia attack (4.87%), epilepsy (4.13%) and hepatic coma (2.64%) . The causes of misdiagnosis could be classified into 14 categories, including complex manifestations of hypoglycemia (29.07%), lack of knowledge of hypoglycemic encephalopathy (16.44%), insufficient medical history collection (10.21%) and interference of compound diseases (9.86%) etc..Conclusions The misdiagnosis of hypoglycemia is mainly caused by the poor professional skills of doctors or their lack of responsibility, and poor patient management, especially when hypoglycemia are manifested by brain disability.
