Endocrine Abstracts

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a most common complication of diabetes mellitus. Patients with DPN have chronic, painful symptoms that disrupt sleep, depressed mood and can lead to diminish quality of life. We evaluated clinical characteristics of diabetic peripheral neuropathy in past and present in Korea

We performed the study to determine the prevalence and to understand the clinical characteristics of diabetic peripheral neuropathy in Koreans on 2005 and 2010.

A cross-sectional study was carried out on type 2 diabetic patients from the diabetic clinics of 33 medical centers throughout Korea on 2005. The study pool consisted of 875 randomly selected type 2 diabetic patients (45% men and 55% women, mean age: 59±10 years). Of the 875 patients, 54% (51% men and 49% women) had DPN. There was significant differences in prevalence between the genders (40.7% men and 59.3% women, P<0.002) and the different age groups (60.7±10.6% vs 56.6±11.7%, P<0.001). The prevalence increased steadily with the duration of diabetes since the time of diagnosis. The DPN patients had higher HbA1c values than did the diabetic patients without DPN (8.0% vs 7.2% respectively P<0.001). The mean number of DPN symptoms was 3.2±1.7. Among them, ‘severe pain on the leg or feet at night’, ‘a sudden cramp on the leg or feet’, and ‘feeling a pin-prick on the leg or feet’ were common, and the incidences of those symptoms were 31%, 29% and 29% respectively.

A cross-sectional study was carried out on 4,000 type 2 diabetic patients from the diabetic clinics of 40 medical centers throughout Korea on 2010. Of the 4000 patients, 33% (51% men and 49% women) had DPN. There was significant differences in prevalence between the genders (40.7% men and 59.3% women, p<0.002) and the different age groups (60.7±10.6% vs 56.6±11.7%, P<0.001). The prevalence increased steadily with the duration of diabetes since the time of diagnosis. The mean number of DPN symptoms for the patients was 3.1±1.7. The mean number of DPN symptoms was 3.1±1.7. Among them, ‘a numbness on the legs or feet’, ‘feeling a pin-prick on the legs or feet’ and ‘severe pain on the legs or feet at night’ were common, and the incidences of those symptoms were 65%, 46% and 36% respectively. DPN is a common complication of diabetes affecting 33–54% of patients with diabetes in Korea.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.