Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Manchester and Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, Manchester, UK.
Diabetes. 2013 Jan;62(1):254-60. doi: 10.2337/db12-0574. Epub 2012 Sep 21.
Diabetic neuropathy is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. To date, limited data in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes demonstrate nerve fiber repair after intervention. This may reflect a lack of efficacy of the interventions but may also reflect difficulty of the tests currently deployed to adequately assess nerve fiber repair, particularly in short-term studies. Corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) represents a novel noninvasive means to quantify nerve fiber damage and repair. Fifteen type 1 diabetic patients undergoing simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation (SPK) underwent detailed assessment of neurologic deficits, quantitative sensory testing (QST), electrophysiology, skin biopsy, corneal sensitivity, and CCM at baseline and at 6 and 12 months after successful SPK. At baseline, diabetic patients had a significant neuropathy compared with control subjects. After successful SPK there was no significant change in neurologic impairment, neurophysiology, QST, corneal sensitivity, and intraepidermal nerve fiber density (IENFD). However, CCM demonstrated significant improvements in corneal nerve fiber density, branch density, and length at 12 months. Normalization of glycemia after SPK shows no significant improvement in neuropathy assessed by the neurologic deficits, QST, electrophysiology, and IENFD. However, CCM shows a significant improvement in nerve morphology, providing a novel noninvasive means to establish early nerve repair that is missed by currently advocated assessment techniques.
糖尿病性神经病与发病率和死亡率的增加有关。迄今为止,在葡萄糖耐量受损和糖尿病患者中,干预后神经纤维修复的有限数据表明。这可能反映出干预措施的疗效有限,但也可能反映出目前用于充分评估神经纤维修复的测试方法存在困难,尤其是在短期研究中。角膜共焦显微镜(CCM)代表了一种定量评估神经纤维损伤和修复的新的非侵入性方法。15 名正在接受胰肾联合移植(SPK)的 1 型糖尿病患者在基线和成功接受 SPK 后 6 个月和 12 个月时接受了神经功能缺损、定量感觉测试(QST)、电生理学、皮肤活检、角膜敏感性和 CCM 的详细评估。基线时,与对照组相比,糖尿病患者有明显的神经病变。成功接受 SPK 后,神经功能障碍、神经生理学、QST、角膜敏感性和表皮内神经纤维密度(IENFD)无明显变化。然而,CCM 在 12 个月时显示出角膜神经纤维密度、分支密度和长度的显著改善。SPK 后血糖正常化后,神经病变的评估没有明显改善,包括神经功能缺损、QST、电生理学和 IENFD。然而,CCM 显示出神经形态的显著改善,为目前提倡的评估技术所遗漏的早期神经修复提供了一种新的非侵入性方法。