Correlation Between Diabetic Lower-extremity Arterial Disease and Diabetic Neuropathy in Patients with Type II Diabetes: an Exploratory Study

The lower-extremity vascular injuries and neuropathy are the most salient complications of diabetes which could lead to the poor prognosis, especially for the type II diabetes. The lower extremity vascular injuries and neuropathy usually coexist, yet their correlation in the pathogenesis of lower extremity lesions has received little attention in previous studies. To investigate the correlation between the degree of lower-extremity arterial injuries and lower-extremity neurological functional status in patients with type II diabetes, 32 patients with type II diabetes were examined for the mean flow velocity of the femoral artery and popliteal artery of lower extremeties, while the motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV) and sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV) of the bilateral common peroneal nerve, sural nerve and posterior tibial nerve were simultaneously examined. Results showed that there was moderate correlation between the mean flow velocity of lower-extremity arteries and MCV/SCV. In particular, the MCV of the right tibial nerve was strongly correlated with the average velocity of the right popliteal artery (P < 0.05).