[Evoked motor and somatosensory potentials in diabetic neuropathy]

The present study was aimed at evaluating the information obtained from evoked motor and sensitive potentials in a population of non-insulin-dependent diabetics compared to information yielded by electroneurographic study. Besides, we wanted to check any possible correlation between metabolic control and changes of evoked potentials. Electroneurographic study of 20 patients revealed signs of peripheral nervous impairment in 11 of these while results were normal in the remaining 9. Analysis of findings resulting from testing of evoked potentials showed a statistically significant increase of these parameters both in the group of patients with neuropathy and in the controls. Since these methods explore longer stretches of the nervous pathways, they are apt to identify lesions located in areas not accessible to common diagnostic methods. Our data did not show a correlation between metabolic control, as assessed by fructosamine assay, and latency of evoked motor and sensitive potentials, thus indicating that other factors, such as environmental and genetic ones, are apt to influence the onset of diabetic neuropathy.