The prevalence of painful diabetic neuropathy in 300 Moroccan diabetics

Abstract

Painful diabetic neuropathy is a frequent complication of diabetes. Its diagnosis is clinical. Our goal is to determine the prevalence of painful diabetic neuropathy in this population. We also analyzed the relationship between this neuropathy and certain parameters, concerning the patient and his diabetes. It is a cross sectional study conducted at the department of endocrinology and internal medicine of Avicenne hospital Marrakech-Morocco, among a cohort of 300 diabetic outpatients. We used the DN4 questionnaire (Douleur Neuropathique en 4 questions), for diagnosis. The results showed a prevalence of 15%. In this study: advanced age, female gender, duration of diabetes greater than 10 years, and the lack of medical follow up were found to be statistically significant risk factors for painful diabetic neuropathy, in addition to some diabetes-related comorbidities such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, sedentary life style and diabetic retinopathy. Painful diabetic neuropathy remains undertreated, in fact 74% of our patients did not receive any specific treatment, knowing that the progress in developing effective and well-tolerated therapies has been disappointing.

Diabetic polyneuropathy with/out neuropathic pain in Mali: A cross-sectional study in two reference diabetes treatment centers in Bamako (Mali), Western Africa

“…Alcohol and tobacco have, however, very rarely been reported as associated factors in African studies. Indeed, in a study of 300 patients with diabetes in Morocco, alcohol and tobacco were not mentioned as factors associated with the occurrence of DPN [33]. In our study, only 4.5% of the patients smoked tobacco.…”

“…In South Africa, a study carried out at both public and private healthcare centers involving 1,046 patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes were monitored by 50 diabetes treatment centers, yielding a DPN prevalence of 30.3% [ 15 ]. In Morocco, the prevalence of DPN has been reported to be 15% [ 33 ]. In Egypt, the overall prevalence of DPN in patients with diabetes has been reported to be 29.3% [ 34 ].…”

“…In contrast to the Western countries, the main risk factors associated with DPN in Mali were obesity (28.4%) and dyslipidemia (12.5%). In the Western world, excessive consumption of alcohol and tobacco are known risk factors for DPN [ 33 , 34 ]. Alcohol and tobacco have, however, very rarely been reported as associated factors in African studies.…”

Risk factors associated with Loss of Protective Sensitivity in Diabetes patients in the Multidisciplinary Unit of Diabetic Foot

“…A pesar de que se encontró asociación con la obesidad y el mal control glicémico, estas no fueron estadísticamente significativas. Los factores de riesgo cardiovasculares asociados de manera significativa con neuropatía diabética fueron la HTA, dislipidemia y el sedentarismo(24). Llama la atención en el grupo estudiado la presencia de dislipidemia en mayor proporción en el grupo sin PSP, pero podría explicarse por el tamaño de la muestra y por el diseño del estudio.…”

“…Dicho resultado coincide con este estudio, donde se encontró una asociación significativa de retinopatía en el grupo con PSP.La frecuencia de pacientes con PSP, que traduce una neuropatía diabética, en este estudio es de 33%. En la literatura, dicha frecuencia reportada varía ampliamente de 8,3 a 45%(24). Esta variabilidad podría deberse a la diversidad de la población estudiada, el tipo de DM y las herramientas utilizadas para el diagnóstico de neuropatía.…”