The present study was undertaken to confirm the curative effect of O-benzoylthiamine disulfide (BTDS) on diabetic neuropathy. BTDS of 30 mg (A group), 75 mg (B group) or 150 mg (C group) as a daily dose, was administered by means of completely randamized double blind method to 116 diabetics with neuropathy for six weeks. Changes of the following symptoms and signs were checked every week, i.e. sensory disturbances, spontaneous pain, other neurological symptoms including visceral neuropathies, headache, general malasia, thirst sensation, knee jerk, ankle jerk and calf tenderness, and the effect was compared among the three groups. The result showed that the curative effect on sensory disturbances, pain and other neurological symptoms, assessed by the weeks needed for the improvement or by the percentage of effective cases, was significantly greater in the B and C groups than the A group. However, the effectiveness on the symptoms was not significantly different between the B group and the C group, except other neurological symptoms. This study indicates that BTDS is effective for diabetic neuropathy and that 75 mg of BTDS is necessary to get the sufficient effect and 30 mg is not an enough dose for it.
