Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Lipohypertrophy (LH) is a chronic complication of diabetes mellitus that caused by frequent subcutaneous injections of insulin. Nowadays, on the basis of results of ultrasonography of subcutaneous fat prevalence of LH in diabetic patients is still high.

Design: The aim has been to develop prevention of insulin induced LH in diabetic patients. This study was done on 140 diabetic patients who had been under the treatment with insulin a mean 8 years. On first stage all patients were divided into two groups. First – 117 patients with LH, second – 23 diabetics without LH. Further, all known LH risk factors were statistically processed using Spearman’s, Gamma rank correlation coefficients. Results were statistically significant when P<0.05. On second stage 65 patients from first group were divided into two subgroups. First – 50 patients with LH and corrected risk factors, second (control) – 15 diabetics with LH and uncorrected risk factors. Ultrasonography of subcutaneous fat were used in assessing new LH in these subgroups after 3 and 6 month.

Results: As a result, 10 factors from 23 were remained after statistic analysis on first stage. Statistically insignificant parameters were eliminated (P>0.05). On next stage, in first subgroup only two patients (4%) had new LH, while in second – 9 diabetics (60%) had new pathologic areas of subcutaneous fat after 3 month. And in first subgroup only 6 patients (12%) had new pathologic areas of subcutaneous fat, while in second – 12 diabetics (80%) had new LH after 6 month.

Conclusions: Nowadays, primary prevention of LH is necessary for diabetic patients under the treatment with insulin. There were stated that only 10 risk factors strongly influence on LH progress. Correction of these risk factors doesn’t lead to development of new subcutaneous fat pathological changes and could be used to prevent LH in diabetic patients in clinical daily practice.