Diabetic Retinopathy Is a Predictor of Progression of Diabetic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Embase, and the Google scholar for eligible studies through September 2021. The quality of selected articles was assessed using JBI checklist. Higgins and Thompson's I ² statistic was used to see the degree of heterogeneity. Based on degree of heterogeneity, fixed or random effects model was used to estimate pooled effect using inverse variance method. Results were expressed as hazard ratios and odds ratios with 95% CIs.

After scrutinizing 18017 articles, data from ten relevant studies (seven prospective and three retrospective) was extracted. DR was significantly associated with DKD progression with a pooled HR of 2.42 (95% CI: 1.70-3.45) and a pooled OR of 2.62 (95% CI: 1.76-3.89). There was also a significant association between the severity of DR and risk of progression of DKD with a pooled OR of 2.13 (95% CI: 1.82-2.50) for nonproliferative DR and 2.56 (95% CI: 2.93-.33) for proliferative DR.

Our study suggests that presence of DR is a strong predictor of risk of kidney disease progression in DKD patients. Furthermore, the risk of DKD progression increases with DR severity. Screening for retinal vascular changes could potentially help in prognostication and risk-stratification of patients with DKD.