Assessment of nerve conduction velocity slowing and its association with the severity of diabetic polyneuropathy, duration of diabetes and glycemic control in diabetic patients
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Objective: This study aimed to investigate the nerve conduction velocity in diabetic patients and its association with diabetes duration, control and severity of diabetic polyneuropathy. Methods: This prospective, observational study involved a hundred and thirty-nine patients who underwent nerve conduction studies in the Neurology Department at Liaquat National Hospital during the years June 2023 till May 2024. In all patients, the medical history was taken by direct interview regarding demographics, diabetes duration and recent HbA1c. For the assessment of diabetic polyneuropathy, the NDS-neuropathy disability score was used. The acquired data was entered into SPSS Statistics software for analysis of significant associations between these variables. Statistical significance was defined as a P-value below 0.05. Results: In this study, we investigated 139 patients with a mean age of 62.20±12.03 years, comprising 60.4% males. The mean HbA1c was 7.46±1.09%, and the mean duration of diabetes was 10.78±7.75 years. Most patients (75.5%) had poor glycemic control, with 92.8% having Type-II diabetes. The mean neuropathy disability score was 5.63±2.39, with 80.6% of patients experiencing neuropathy. Nerve conduction velocity slowing was detected in 54.7% of the patients. Notably, significant associations were found between nerve conduction velocity slowing and diabetes duration (p=0.019), and neuropathy disability score (p=0.000). Conclusion: Our findings indicate that male gender, poor glycemic control, and a longer duration of diabetes are associated with slowing of nerve conduction velocity. Additionally, the severity of neuropathy, as measured by the Neuropathy disability score, further strengthens these associations, highlighting its significance in assessing diabetic neuropathy progression. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.41.3.10397 How to cite this: Zaidi S, Samad AA. Assessment of nerve conduction velocity slowing and its association with the severity of diabetic polyneuropathy, duration of diabetes and glycemic control in diabetic patients. Pak J Med Sci. 2025;41(3):699-705. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.41.3.10397 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Authors: Saba Zaidi, Ayesha Abdul Samad
Institution: Liaquat National Hospital
Language: English
Subfield: Neurology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $400
OpenAlex ID: W4407779081