Why the study?
Because diabetic neuropathy manifests first in longer nerves like the vagus nerve, this study aimed to compare the ultrasound cross-sectional area of the vagus nerve between patients with type 2 diabetes and non-diabetic controls.
Does type 2 diabetes alter the cross-sectional area of the vagus nerve on high-resolution ultrasound compared to asymptomatic controls without type 2 diabetes?
Does type 2 diabetes alter the cross-sectional area of the vagus nerve on high-resolution ultrasound compared to asymptomatic controls without type 2 diabetes?
Patients with type 2 diabetes demonstrated normal vagus nerve cross-sectional areas on ultrasound comparable to healthy controls, with no correlation to glycemic control or disease duration.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Ultrasound vagus nerve changes in T2D may signal early neuropathy; leaves open diagnostic utility and need for prospective validation.
Diabetic neuropathy, including autonomic neuropathy is a serious complication related to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). The vagus nerve (VN) is the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system, and since diabetic neuropathy manifests first in longer nerves, the VN is commonly affected in early diabetic autonomic neuropathy. The use of high-resolution ultrasound for peripheral and cranial nerve imaging has significantly increased over the past 2 decades. The aim of the study is to compare the cross-sectional area of the VN in patients with T2D to that of a control cohort without T2D. A total of 52 VN cross-sectional areas were recorded from patients with T2D. A total of 56 VN cross-sectional areas were also recorded from asymptomatic subjects without T2D. In each subject, high-resolution ultrasound imaging of the bilateral VNs was performed in the short-axis between the common carotid artery and the internal jugular vein. The VN cross-sectional areas were recorded and compared. In the patients with T2D, HbA1c and fasting blood glucose levels were obtained as well as the duration of T2D in years and correlated with the cross-sectional areas. The bilateral VN cross-sectional areas were similar in both cohorts. Additionally, no correlation was seen between the VN cross-sectional areas, demographics, or clinical data of T2D. Our study demonstrated normal VN cross-sectional areas in patients with T2D without any significant relation with the patients' demographic or clinical data.
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Kotb et al. (2023) studied this question.
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