[Relation between urinary albumin excretion and retinopathy in insulin-dependent diabetics]

To study the relationship between retinal and renal microangiopathy, the albumin excretion rate (AER) was measured by radioimmunoassay in 111 insulin-dependent diabetics and compared to their stages of retinopathy, as assessed by ophthalmoscopic examination and fluorescein angiography. The prevalence of pathological AER differed from that of diabetic retinopathy. The stage of retinopathy was related to the duration of diabetes (r = 0.59; P = 0.001), which was not the case for AER (r = 0.06; ns). Half of patients with proliferative retinopathy (11/22) had a normal AER, while 12% of those without retinopathy had a pathological AER (microalbuminuria). No relationship was found between glycaemic control and AER. The highest prevalence of hypertension was found in patients with macroalbuminuria (greater than 500 mg/24 h) and/or severe retinopathy. The mean AER was higher in hypertensive diabetics than in non-hypertensive diabetics (P less than 0.005). These results suggest that the risk of retinopathy is dissociated from the risk of glomerulopathy in diabetics, and that hypertension associates with diabetes mellitus in a greater risk of pathological AER.