Management of diabetic neuropathy with memantine: A randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Diabetes patients frequently experience diabetic neuropathy (DN), a microvascular complication that significantly reduces patients’ quality of life. Memantine has demonstrated potential benefits for neuropathic pains in preclinical studies. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of memantine in the management of peripheral neuropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHOD: This randomized clinical trial includes 143 diabetic patients (aged between 18 and 75 years) with a confirmed diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy. Patients were randomly assigned to receive memantine 5 mg twice daily for 1 week, followed by 10 mg twice daily plus gabapentin 300 mg daily (n = 72) or just gabapentin 300 mg daily (n = 71) for 8 weeks. The DN4 questionnaire, monofilament, tuning fork, and Tip-therm tests were used to measure neuropathy at baseline and after the 8-week intervention. RESULTS: The mean score of the DN4 questionnaire in the memantine group was significantly lower than the control group (p. value: .001). The number of patients with diabetic neuropathy remarkably decreased in the memantine group at the end of the study based on the performed tests (p. value: .001). CONCLUSION: Memantine functions as a beneficial agent in the management of diabetic neuropathy, which would significantly improve the quality of life in diabetic patients.