ABSTRACT
To determine the frequency of demyelinating pattern on electrophysiological study in patients with diabetic peripheral polyneuropathy. Cross sectional study. This study was performed at Department of Neurology, Mayo Hospital, Lahore and Medical Unit II, Allied Hospital, Faisalabad from 01-Jan-2012 to 30-Sep-2012. In this study non-probability purposive sampling technique was used. The calculated sample size was 100 cases. All patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy and of both gender and age between 15-65 y were included in the study. Whereas Diabetic patients in whom history, clinical examination or medical record showing renal failure, hereditary neuropathies, thyroid disease, alcohol intake and toxic drug intake like anti tuberculous treatment, anti-cancer medicine etc were excluded from the study. Nerve conduction studies and electromyography were performed. Patients were labeled as having demyelinating, axonal or mixed pattern. The collected information was entered into SPSS version 15. Among the enrolled 100 patients, 56 [56%] patients were male and 44 [44%] patients were female. On electrophysiological examination, demyelinating pattern was found in 18[18%] patients, axonal pattern in 54[54%] patients and mixed pattern in 28[28%] patients. Mean duration of diabetes mellitus was 82 months + 56 S.D. The duration of diabetes ranged from 8-264 months. Our study indicates that there is high frequency of demyelinating neuropathy in patients of diabetic peripheral polyneuropathy in our local population