[Diabetes insipidus: approaches to desmopressin substitution therapy]

There is a worldwide tendency toward the growing prevalence of diabetes insipidus due to the elevated frequency of its central form attributable to the large number of surgical brain interventions and craniocerebral injuries. The overall diabetes insipidus morbidity is estimated at 30%. During the last 100 years, the patients were treated first with pituitary posterior lobe extract then with synthetic arginine-vasopressin. The break-through came in 1974 with the advent of desmopressin, a synthetic analog of natural arginine-vasopressin, that antagonizes V2 receptors, lacks vasoconstrictor activity, and exerts strong long-term antidiuretic action.