[Capillary fragility in diabetics and its modification by calcium dobesilate]

Investigations of the peripheral capillary resistance with the congestion test after Rumpel-Leede resulted in a maximally increased vascular fragility in 172 diabetics in 72% of the cases and in 54 test persons with healthy metabolism in 11% of the cases. Clear sex or age relations could not be proved. The high proportion of pathological test results already after a short duration of diabetes (beyond the 5th year 75%) and in ophthalmoscopically not yet provable retinopathy (70%) renders evident the increased capillary fragility as a symptom of the functional prephase of the specific microangiopathy and at the same time confirms its generalized character. In 115 diabetics with high-degree pathological congestion test (IVb) a 4-week treatment with 750 mg calcium dobesilate led in 94 cases to an improvement of the findings, in 17 patients to a complete normalization. On the basis of this result as well as of pathogenetic considerations calcium dobesilate offers itself as an adjuvant treatment measure which is early to be used. The influence of a simultaneously present hypertension on the development of microangiopathy became clear at the significantly more frequent pathological and medicamentously essentially worse influencible capillary resistance.