[Proliferative diabetic retinopathy for over twenty years without glomerulosclerosis (author's transl)]

Proliferative retinopathy and glomerulosclerosis (Kimmelstiel-Wilson disease), crucial prognostic features in determining morbidity and mortality of diabetics nowadays, appear to be closely related: joint inadence, parallel progression and similar histological findings. A report is given on four cases suffering from proliferative retinopathy for 20 to 26 years, yet without any signs of glomerulosclerosis. The patient are all advanced in age (68 and more) and in relatively good general condition, but have, tragically, been blind for many years. Hence proliferative retinopathy, though part of diabetic angiography, is proved to originate independently from glomerulosclerosis although apparently so closely related to this syndrome. Nothing can be said in explanation of this fact, neither on a metabolic nor an organic basis.