ABSTRACT
The prevalence of diabetic retinopathy and the evaluation of its risk factors is poorly known in Italian population. Therefore, we have studied 894 diabetic outpatients (420 males, 474 females, 27.6% IDDs, 38.1% insulin-treated) in order to investigate the effect of clinical and metabolic characteristics on the frequency of diabetic retinopathy, classified into six different classes. In univariate analyses age, duration of disease, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, blood urea nitrogen, 24 hr proteinuria and fasting glycemia significantly correlated (p less than 0.001) with severity of retinopathy. The significance was confirmed in multivariate analysis for duration, age and systolic blood pressure (p less than 0.001). Stratification by type of diabetes showed that undefined onset of diabetes probably reduced in NID patients the power of duration as an associated factor of retinopathy. Worsening of this complication in three clinical classes of therapy (diet, oral and insulin-treatment) is evident too. Finally, our 11 variables in the step-wise multiple-regression analysis explain only 16.8% of diabetic retinopathy in all patients, but 36.6% in selected ID subjects.
Subject(s)
Diabetic Retinopathy/etiology , Adolescent , Adult , Age Factors , Aged , Analysis of Variance , Blood Glucose/analysis , Blood Pressure , Cholesterol/blood , Diabetic Retinopathy/physiopathology , Female , Glycated Hemoglobin/analysis , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Proteinuria , Risk Factors , Triglycerides/bloodABSTRACT
The visual evoked potentials (VEP pattern) were studied in a group of 18 type I diabetic subjects. Age of patients, duration of disease, glicosilated hemoglobin, blood sugar were correlated with the modifications in latency and amplitude of visual evoked responses.
