ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION Open Access Do patients with type 1 an n e

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Today, the most extensively used non-invasive technique for assessment of endothelial function is sonographic determination of flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery [1]. FMD is considered to represent endothelium-dependent vasodilation [1]. Low FMD values predict cardiovascular events independently of established atherosclerosis [2]. Cardiovascular risk factors associated with endothelial dysfunction include hypertension [3], hypercholesterolemia [4], and smoking [5]. Furthermore, type 1 [6-11] and type 2 diabetes [12-17] were reported to be associated with endothelial dysfunction. Previous studies suggesting an impaired endothelial function in patients with diabetes suffered partly from several limitations such as small sample sizes, different methods of FMD measurements or most importantly lack of adequate selection of control subjects [6-16] as well as non-adjustment for relevant cardiovascular con-founders [18]. To overcome these limitations we per-formed the present propensity score matching analysis for comparison of FMD values of diabetic and non-diabeti