Correlation of glucose and lipid metabolism, renal function and retinopathy in diabetic retinopathy patients using...

To investigate the correlation between glucose and lipid metabolism, renal function, and retinopathy in patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR) based on optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA).

A total of 584 diabetic patients who underwent treatment at The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University from March 2022 to June 2023 were retrospectively selected as research participants. They were categorized into a NDR group (n=366) and a DR group (n=218) based on the presence or absence of DR. Relevant indexes of glucose and lipid metabolism, renal function, and OCTA findings were collected. Logistic regression analysis was applied to identify the influencing factors of diabetes mellitus complicated with DR. ROC curves were drawn to examine the diagnostic value of the screened influencing factors for diabetes mellitus complicated with DR. Finally, Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to examine the relevance between influencing factors and the severity of DR Lesions.

Logistic regression showed that high levels of angiography 3 × 3 inner vascular density (IVD_33) and angiography 3 × 3 inner perfusion density (IPD_33) were protective factors for diabetes mellitus complicated with DR, and diabetic peridiabetic vascular disease (DPVD), elevated blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and urea levels were risk factors for diabetes mellitus complicated with DR (all P<0.05). ROC curve displayed that the areas under the curve (AUC) of IVD_33, DPVD, BUN, IPD_33, and Urea in predicting diabetes mellitus with DR were 0.779, 0.705, 0.621, 0.723, and 0.632, respectively. The AUC of combined prediction with OCTA index was higher than that of combined prediction without OCTA index (0.781 VS 0.84, P<0.05). Spearman correlation coefficient displayed that IVD_33 and IPD_33 were negatively correlated with the severity of DR, whereas DPVD and Urea showed a positive correlation (P<0.05).

Our findings provide valuable insights for the initial clinical assessment of diabetic patients with DR and aid in the early determination of DR severity. Corresponding intervention measures should be formulated as early as possible to remedy patients' outcomes.