A Study of Cardiac Autonomic Neuropathy among Type-II Diabetic Patients

Background: Though very common, CAN is a least understood complication of diabetes which is often under diagnosed. In diabetes mellitus patients, CAN leads to silent myocardial infarction and sudden death. So by identifying CAN early, which is asymptomatic will help to delay or arrest its progression.

AIM: To find out the prevalence and the associated risk factors of Cardiac autonomic neuropathy (CAN) among type-II Diabetes Mellitus patients in a tertiary care hospital.

Materials & Methods: A total of 273 type-II diabetic participants were selected after taking into consideration of inclusion & exclusion criteria. The prevalence of CAN was assessed by ewings and clarkesnon invasive cardiac autonomic neuropathy reflex tests. The association of risk factors with the presence of CAN was analysed by using Pearson’s chi square test. Data were analysed by using SPSS 16. The accepted level of significance was set below 0.05 (P<0.05).

Results: The prevalence of CAN among type-II diabetic patients in this study was found to be 34%. Prevalence of CAN increased in the participants with male gender, increased age, and increased BMI, increased duration of diabetes, poor glycaemic control,dyslipidimea, smokers and hypertension and it is statistically significant.

Conclusion: In this study it is observed that the prevalence of CAN increased with old age, male gender, poor glycemic control, increased duration of diabetes, Dyslipidemia, higher BMI, Hypertension & smoking. So risk factors associated with the CAN be detected and treated at an early stage to further reduce morbidity and mortality.