Role of cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials in evaluating vestibular dysfunction in patients with Type II diabetes mellitus: A prospective institutional study

Introduction: Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials (C VEMP) is new dimension of non-invasive investigation to evaluate integrity of Saccule and inferior vestibular nerve by means of sacculo-collic reflex. In this study, we intend to use cervical vestibular evoked Myogenic potential as tool to investigate prevalence of vestibular dysfunction in patients with type II diabetes mellitus. Objectives: To study the prevalence of vestibular dysfunction as measured by cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Results: Prospective study performed on patients presenting in Otorhinolaryngology department during 2013-2016. Patients in study with type 2 diabetes mellitus of greater than 5 years underwent vestibular assessment by using Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials. It was observed that 4 (10.0%) patients had absent bilateral Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials responses, 8(20.0%) patients had delayed Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials responses with delayed p1 and n1 latencies. Discussion and Conclusion: In diabetic individuals who are asymptomatic in patients who never complained of giddiness, Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials identified vestibular dysfunction in 25% of patients. In symptomatic diabetic mellitus individuals, Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials was able to identify 33.3% of vestibular dysfunction, however in another 33.3% of patients where Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials failed to identify.