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Updated: Dec 22, 2025

Retinal Pathophysiological Evaluation in a Rat Model
Published on: May 6, 2022
Previous dramatic reduction of HbA1c and retinopathy in Type 2 Diabetes
Alice Larroumet1, Marine Rigo1, Maxime Lecocq2
1Department of Endocrinology-Diabetology-Nutrition, CHU de Bordeaux, France.
Aims:
Does Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) relate to a previous dramatic reduction of HbA1c in Type 2 Diabetes (T2D)?
Methods:
In patients hospitalized for T2D, we collected HbA1c values from previous years, and we defined "Rapid declinors" by a more than -3% reduction between two consecutive HbA1c, and "sustained moderate declinors" by HbA1c declining less than -3%. We analyzed the relation between DR and previous HbA1c courses, adjusted for other risk factors.
Results:
Our 680 patients had a mean HbA1c at 8.7 ± 1.7% at admission and 8.7 ± 1.8 to 9.0 ± 2.2% during previous years (1500 HbA1C values collected), and 24% had a DR. A previous rapid decline of HbA1c occurred in 13.5% of subjects and related to DR (OR = 1.86, 95%CI:1.02-3.40), especially proliferative (OR = 2.64, 95%CI:1.02-6.80), after adjustment for age, gender, body mass index, arterial hypertension and diabetic kidney disease, blood lipids and statin treatment, duration of diabetes and mean previous HbA1c. A previous moderate reduction of HbA1c as occurred in 28.3% other subjects was not related to DR.
Conclusions:
In subjects hospitalized for T2D, a previous rapid decline of HbA1c was related to proliferative DR, whereas a sustained moderate decline appeared to be safe.
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