Incidence of diabetic dermopathy

Objective: To assess the incidence of diabetic dermopathy and to correlate the incidence in diabetics and non diabetics. Patients and methods: The study was done in 250 patients who attended skin outpatient department of our hospital. Thorough general physical examination and dermatological examination was carried out in each case. All the cases were noted and comparison between the diabetics and non diabetics was done. Results: The incidence of diabetic dermopathy in our study was 21 (16.8%) cases in diabetics and 9 (7.2%) cases in non diabetics which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Any obese patient present with multiple shin spots having fasting blood glucose levels towards the higher side of normal along with a positive family history of diabetes mellitus should undergo further investigation to rule out the possibility of early diabetes and other microangiopathies as recognition of this finding is the key to early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of chronic disease like diabetes.