RESUMO
Ten insulin-dependent children, ages 10 to 15 years and their controls constitute the preliminary report of this nerve biopsy ultrstuctural study. The existing correlations between vascular complications of the retina and the absence of clinical neuropathy are analyzed. The most important unstructual finding in six children showed disintegration of the myelin sheath, dense osmiophilic deposits from 200 A to 400, amorphic inclusions laminated opaque areas, endoplasmic reticulum alterations characterized by vacuoles and opaque granules corresponding to beta type glycogen, electronically dense, between 280 A and 160 A. The mitochondria were scare and very small. A pathological explanation for these alterations, definitely located in nerve biopsies of insulin-dependent diabetic children, is that these ultrastructual obervations are aetiologically associated with functional neuropathic changes (AU)
