[Cerebrolysin in treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy]

Cerebrolysin is a peptide solution with free amino acids and biologically active peptides showing neurotrophic efficiency. In a placebo-controlled longitudinal study we investigated the effect of that drug for treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy in 20 type-II diabetic patients (9 women, 11 men, mean age 63 +/- 9 years, duration of diabetes 14 +/- 7 years). Patients received daily a cerebrolysin-infusion (20 ml in 500 ml Ringer) over a period of 10 days. In an age- and diabetes-duration matched placebo group of 10 type-II diabetic patients (7 women, 3 men, age 66 +/- 9 years, duration of diabetes 12 +/- 5 years) vitamin B infusion was administered (5 ml vitamin B complex in 500 ml Ringer) during 10 days. We compared a five-item symptom score scale (FIS) for pain, dysesthesia, paresthesia, nightly exacerbation, and sleep disturbances (grade 0 to 3) and a graphic visual analogue rating scale (VAS) for recording the magnitude of the pains (scale 0 to 100 mm) at the beginning and the end of the infusion therapy as well as 6 weeks later. Cerebrolysin was associated with a significant decrease in total FIS score from 8.7 +/- 1.9 at the start of therapy to 5.1 +/- 2.2 after 6 weeks (p < 0.001), and to a reduction of the VAS score from 4.2 +/- 0.8 to 2.8 +/- 0.9 (p < 0.001) during the same period of observation. In contrast in the placebo group the total FIS score decreased only from 7.9 +/- 1.2 at the beginning to 6.6 +/- 1.1 (p < 0.05) 6 weeks later and the VAS score from 4.5 +/- 0.6 to 4.0 +/- 0.5 (NS). Thus cerebrolysin led to a significant subjective improvement of painful diabetic neuropathy in type-II diabetic patients at least for a period of 6 weeks.