A clinico-haematologic study of diabetic retinopathy

Context: Early diagnosis and management of diabetic retinopathy shall prevent avoidable blindness due to diabetes. Ophthalmoscopic screening of all diabetics in the community is effective but difficult due to high prevalence of diabetics. A simple, common blood test to predict the development of diabetic retinopathy will be a boon to the community. Aims: To correlate the haematological parameters with diabetic retinopathy and to assess whether these parameters can be a diagnostic biomarker. Materials and Methods: An observational, analytic, case control study was conducted from 1st May 2022 to 31st October 2022 for a period of six months. Age and sex matched 57 type-2 diabetic cases with retinopathy, and 57 type-2 diabetic controls without retinopathy were analysed clinically and haematologically using SPSS trial version 29. Results: Clinical analysis revealed longer duration of diabetes, higher fasting and postprandial blood sugar, insulin treatment and associated hypertension had strong association with diabetic retinopathy with P values <0.001, <0.001, 0.004, 0.024 and 0.026, respectively. Haematological analysis revealed higher mean values of mean platelet volume (MPV), platelet distribution width (PDW), platelet large cell ratio (P-LCR), red cell distribution width (RDW) and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in diabetic patients with retinopathy (P values <0.001 for all), proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) (P values <0.001, <0,001, <0.001, 0.056, <0.001) and diabetic retinopathy with macular oedema (P values < 0.001, 0.052, 0.004, 0.167, 0.002), respectively. Conclusions: A simple, cost-effective single blood test, namely complete blood count (CBC) analysis, provides reliable predictive diagnostic biomarker for the development and progression of diabetic retinopathy.