Impairment of the Auditory Brainstem Function in Diabetic Neuropathy
- Tamás T. Várkonyi, MD1,
- Ferenc Tóth2,
- László Rovó, MD2,
- Csaba Lengyel, MD1,
- József Géza Kiss, PHD2,
- Póter Kempler, MD, PHD, DSC3 and
- Jónos Lonovics, MD, PHD1
- 1First Department of Medicine, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
- 2Department of Otolaryngology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
- 3First Department of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
Diabetes may alter both the peripheral and the central nerve function, but the peripheral manifestations of diabetic neuropathy are more frequently discussed in the literature than the impairment of the central nervous system. Delay of the evoked potentials in the central pathways has been reported in diabetic patients (1), but the exact pathophysiology of these alterations is still unclear (2). The aims of our study were to characterize the afferent brainstem function by detection of the auditory-evoked potentials in patients with long-standing type 1 diabetes and to analyze possible connections between the central neural dysfunction and the autonomic and peripheral sensory neuropathies.
We enrolled 12 patients with long-standing type 1 diabetes who had normal hearing (age [mean ±SD] 42.1 ±14.8 years, duration of diabetes 23 ±8.9 years, BMI 26.8 ±4.6 kgm2). The quantitative characteristics of the brainstem function were evaluated …
