BACKGROUND: School urinary glucose screening may be helpful for early detection of diabetes mellitus (DM) in asymptomatic children. The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of diabetic children with asymptomatic glucosuria. METHODS: Sixty-one newly diagnosed diabetic children with asymptomatic glucosuria detected by school urine glucose screening (glucosuria group) were included this study. DM was diagnosed by the result of an oral glucose tolerance test. We analyzed their anthropometric, clinical and laboratory characteristics. In addition, we compared their characteristics to 36 diabetic children detected by other findings except glucosuria (non-glucosuria group). RESULTS: Of the 61 children with DM in glucosuria group, 59 (96.7%) were classified as T2DM and only 2 (3.3%) were classified as having T1DM. Their mean ages and BMI were 13.7±2.5 years and 25.7±5.5 kg/m2, respectively. There was no statistically significant differences in any anthropometric, clinical and laboratory characteristics between T1DM and T2DM children. When we compared characteristics of T2DM between glucosuria group(n=59) and non-glucosuria group(n=36), polyuria and polydipsia were highly prevalent in children of non-glucosuria group, and their serum triglyceride levels were significantly higher compared to children of glucosuria group. However, we could not find other differences between two groups. CONCLUSIONS: We identified 61 new case of DM with diabetic children with glucosuria. Most of them were classified as T2DM and they were asymptomatic. These findings suggest that school urine glucose screening is feasible and simple method for early detection of asymptomatic T2DM in children and adolescents.