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Early detection of neurological dysfunction in patients with diabetes mellitus: Clinical and neurophysiological correlation with control group

Abstract:

Neurological involvement due to diabetes mellitus has been clinically and subclinically recognized in long term disease, specially affecting peripheral nervous system. Such involvement can be promptly detected by a complete neurophysiological evaluation, including evoked potentials. We studied 13 neurologically asymptomatic patients (7 men and 6 women) with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus diagnosed up to 5 years earlier. Mean age was 48 years (range between 28 and 68 years). Motor and sensitive nerve conduction velocity, brainstem auditory, visual and median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials were performed in all these cases. Blood glucose and fructosamine were simultaneously evaluated. In addition, 11 healthy subjects were studied as a control group for reference values. Nerve conduction velocity evaluation showed at least one abnormality related to latency, amplitude or velocity (p<0.05) in the patient group, which correlated with metabolic control. The evoked potentials showed non significative pathological results. We conclude that subclinical peripheral neuropathy is a definite complication of diabetes mellitus of relatively recent onset, but central conduction abnormalities are less evident.