Abnormal brainstem evoked potentials in diabetes mellitus. Evoked potential testings and magnetic resonance imaging.

Brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) and median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (MN-SEPs) were measured in 53 diabetic patients. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed 12 patients with abnormal BAEPs and/or MN-SEPs in order to confirm the existence of lesions in the central nervous system. Twenty-six percent of the diabetic patients had abnormal BAEPs and three had a prolongation of the central conduction time in the MN-SEPs. MRI findings of ten of the 12 patients with abnormal BAEPs or MN-SEPs showed multiple small lesions in the pons, thalamus, and centrum semiovale etc. Two of them showed small lesion in the pontine basis which could induce prolonged interpeak latencies of BAEPs. Our MRI study might suggest that abnormal brainstem evoked potentials in diabetic patients were induced by diabetic macroangiopathy or microangiopathy.