Comparative analysis of electrophysiological parameters of sural nerve in normal and type-2 diabetic subjects

The study was designed to evaluate sural nerve conduction of type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients that were asymptomatic for neuropathy and compare their findings with age and sex matched healthy individuals. Using a standard technique, sural nerve conduction study was conducted on 100 T2DM patients with no clinical features suggestive of neuropathy and 100 healthy volunteers, matched for age and sex, serving as control. Sural nerve latency, Amplitude and Conduction Velocity (CV) were measured using Nihoen Kohden EMG Machine. On comparison of the sural nerve conduction parameters, sural nerve distal latencies were significantly lower in the control group while the sural nerve conduction velocities and amplitudes were significantly higher in the T2DM group. The study showed significant difference between the sural nerve conduction parameters in T2DM patients without clinical features suggestive of peripheral neuropathy when compared with apparently healthy individuals. Keywords: Sural nerve; Diabetic neuropathy; Electrophysiology