Background: Endothelial dysfunction associated with diabetes mellitus (DM) may influence arterial vasoreactivity after arterial stimulus, such as cannulation, and cause changes in diameter and blood flow. Despite the frequent use of arterial cannulation during anesthesia and critical care, little information is available regarding vasoreactivity of the radial and ulnar arteries and its influence on underlying DM.
Methods: Forty non-DM and 40 DM patients, who required arterial cannulation during general anesthesia, were enrolled. Using duplex Doppler ultrasonography, we measured the patients' arterial diameter, peak systolic velocity, end-diastolic velocity, resistance index, and mean volume flow of both arteries at five different time points.
Results: After radial artery cannulation, ulnar arterial diameter and blood flow did not significantly increase in DM group, as they did in non-DM group. Ulnar arterial resistance index significantly increased in both groups, but the degree of decrease in DM group was significantly less than non-DM.
Conclusion: Ulnar artery's ability to increase blood flow for compensating the sudden reduction of radial arterial flow in DM patients was significantly less than that in non-DM patients under general anesthesia. Such attenuated vasoreactivity of ulnar artery to compensate the reduced radial arterial flow may have to be considered in radial arterial cannulation for DM patients.
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus; catheterization; radial artery; ulnar artery; ultrasonography, doppler, duplex..