Corneal Confocal Microscopy (CCM) is a non-invasive imaging technique to quantify small nerve fibre structure in patients with diabetic somatic and autonomic neuropathy and increasingly other metabolic, hereditary, toxic and inflammatory peripheral neuropathies. This thesis establishes that CCM is indeed a powerful imaging technique which can identify early small fibre degeneration and regeneration in relation to the clinical phenotype of subjects with obesity, impaired glucose tolerance and Type1/2 diabetes. We demonstrate a precise relationship between small fibre neuropathy and erectile dysfunction in subjects with Type 1 diabetes. We also demonstrate the utility of CCM in demonstrating relative protection from small fibre damage in Type 1 patients with extreme duration diabetes (medallists) at baseline and over 3 years and repair in patients undergoing simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation. This thesis provides further evidence for the utility of CCM as a marker of early small fibre neuropathy by demonstrating nerve damage in subjects with morbid obesity with and without diabetes and explore the mechanisms underlying nerve damage at baseline and repair following bariatric surgery. We also show that CCM can track dynamic changes in small fibre degeneration and regeneration in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance in relation to change in glucose tolerance status and following continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion in subjects with Type 1 diabetes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:713593 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Azmi, Shazli |
| Contributors | Jeziorska, Maria |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/longitudinal-studies-in-metabolic-neuropathies-development-of-imaging-biomarkers(6913e957-0e81-4af8-a544-f943f0105b8c).html |
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