Plasma fibronectin study in insulin-dep endent diabetic children

Abstract

Elevated plasma levels of fibronectin (FN) have been reported in adult diabetics with a long follow-up. We studied 35 diabetic children 3-15 years old (mean 9,6 ± 2,2), 10 of them at the onset and the other 25 with a evolution from 1-11 years. The plasma FN was 24,0 ± 9,4 mg/dl in patients, similar to normal group (27,5 ± 5,9 mg/dl). The group of patients studied at onset has a higher plasma FN (26,5 ± 8,3 mg/dl) than patients with more than 4 years follow-up (21,6 ± 8,5 mg/dl), although this difference was not significant (p>0.2), Only two patients have microangiopathy, so no conclusions could be obtained. Two different techniques for measuring FN, Laurell's electroimmunoassay and radial immunodiffusion, were compared and although total results were similar (r: 0.520, p<0.0001) the variability coefficient was 14,78 % with a range from + 45-50 %. The results suggest that in the infantile diabetes there was not plasma FN modifications yet, but its determination may be probably useful in young adult for establishing an early diagnosis of vascular and renal damage.