Clinical efficacy of alprostadil combined with α-lipoic acid in the treatment of elderly patients with diabetic nephropathy

Abstract

To evaluate the effect and toxicity of alprostadil combined with thioctic acid injection in the treatment of patients with diabetic nephropathy (DN). Sixty two patients with DN were included in this study and randomly divided into control group (n=32) and experiment group (n=30). Patients in the control group were given alprostadil 20ug+NS 100ml ivgtt, qd and patients in the experiment group were given alprostadil 20ug+NS 100ml ivgtt combined with thioctic acid injection of 0.45g+100ml ivgtt, qd for 14 days. After treatment, the renal function and serum level of CRP, IL-6 and TNF-α were compared between the two groups. After two weeks of treatment, the serum level of CysC and UAER significant decreased for both control and experiment group with statistical difference of p<0.05. After treatment, the serum level of CysC were 1.40 ±0.46 mg/L and 1.02±0.33 for control and experiment group respectively (p<0.05). The post-treatment UAER in experiment group was significantly lower than those of control group with statistical difference (81.02±0.33 vs112.45±20.32, p<0.05) ug/min. The serum level of CRP, IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly decreased after treatment for both control and experiment group (p<0.05). And the post-treatment serum CRP, IL-6 and TNF-α in experiment group were significantly lower than those of control group with statistical difference (p<0.05). No significant side effects were found for the two groupsin the course of treatment. Alprostadil combined with α-lipoic acid may improve renal function in patients with diabetic nephropathy by decreasing the levels of serum inflammatory factors.