Automated Measurement of Sural Nerve Conduction is a useful Screening Tool for Peripheral Neuropathy in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

We examined the diagnostic performance of the portable NC-stat® DPNCheckTM device (Neurometrix, Inc., Waltham, MA, USA) for automated measurement of sural nerve conduction in the diagnosis of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) in subjects with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). We included 53 consecutive T1DM subjects (28 men) with mean age 36.9 years and mean T1DM duration 14.6 years. Exclusion criteria were B12 depletion, alcohol abuse, and other causes of peripheral neuropathy.

The reference method was the Neuropathy Disability Score (NDS) with a threshold NDS ≥ 3 ^[1]. Determination of sural nerve automated NCS was carried out using the portable NC-stat® DPNCheckTM device ^[2]. Nerve conduction velocity and sensory nerve action potential amplitude were measured bilaterally. Automated NCS was dichotomously considered as normal or abnormal as follows: abnormality was present if at least one of the two aforementioned neurophysiological parameters was outside normal range in at least one leg ^[2].