الفهرس 
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Abstract
Diabetes mellitus is a common metabolic disorder of high prevalence all over the world in which an inherited susceptibility plays an important role,and it is characterized by relative or absolute insulin secretion or deficient insulin action with disordered metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fats (Keen, 1981).
In diabetes mellitus, the cardiovascular complications are major causes of morbidity and mortality. Together with the classical diabetic nephropathy,retinopathy and neuropathy the existence of specific heart disease termed diabetic cardiomyopathy has been suggested (Ledet et al., 1979) and there is an increasing evidence that diabetic patients have an abnormal left ventricular function caused by diabetes in the absence of other clinical heart diseases that may influence myocardial function such as hypertension and ischaemic disease (Sanderson et al., 1978).
Myocardial involvement in diabetes may occur relatively early in the course of the disease, initially impairing early diastolic relaxation and when more extensive, impairing both relaxation and contraction, and it is an important matter of research to study whether these changes result from small vessel disease of the myocardium,metabolic effect of diabetes or any other causes that may influence myocardial function in diabetic patients, though it seems likely to be of multiple origin (Shapiro at al., 1981).
Assessment of left ventricular function in diabetic patients can be considered as an index of myocardial involvement in diabetes. Nowadays, this is simply done by the use of accurate and non—invasive technique, namely echocardiography (zoneraich et al., 1977).
Assessment of urinary proteins is one of the most commonly used tests in clinical medicine particularly in diabetic nephropathy (Viberti and Keen, 1984).
Microalbuminuria has proved to be an excellent and strong predictor of progression to overt nephropathy in both insulin dependent and non-insulin dependent diabetics (Mogensen, 1984)
It is established that, the increased albumin excretion in diabetic patients indicates a generalised microvascular disease thus identifying patients with more advanced lesions both in the kidney and else where in the body, so, it is concluded that the presence of microalbuminuria may indicate the need for improvement in metabolic control and for a careful follow up for other diabetic complications (Mogensen, 1986).