A Correlative Study of Duration of Diabetes Mellitus, Microalbuminuria, Hyperlipidaemia with the Severity of Diabetic Retinopathy

AIM: The present study was carried out with an aim to study the concordance and correlation of microalbuminuria, dyslipidemia with the severity of Diabetic Retinopathy in type II diabetes mellitus patient and to provide a possible basis for explanation of mechanisms governing this relationship. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in North India.The patients underwent thorough history and ocular evaluation.The patients included in the study were advised to undergo biochemical investigations for Blood sugar, Urinary albumin to creatinine ratio in a random spot collection of urine and Lipid profile. Patients with acute or chronic renal failure, Opaque/hazy ocular media preventing fundus visualization, Co-existing ocular disorders likely to mask the findings of diabetic retinopathy, Patients with presence of any of the confounding factors, like fever, active systemic infections, exercise, high protein intake, accelerated hypertension, congestive heart failure, patients not willing to participate in the study were excluded from the study. RESULTS: 444 subjects of either gender were included in our study, out of which 236 patients were females and the rest were males. Majority of the patients lied in the age group of 41-60 years (54.73%) followed by 61-80 years (29.28%) and 20-40 years (15.09%), while only 4(0.90%) patients were aged >80 years. A statistically significant association with severity of retinopathy and the age of the patients was observed. Proportion of Group I (No retinopathy) was higher in younger patients i.e. 20- 40 (74.6%) and 41-60 (54.3%) as compared to elderly cases i.e. 61-80 (46.2%) and this difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). Statistically significant association was found between the severity of retinopathy and duration of diabetes (p<0.001). Proportion of severe to very severe retinopathy and proliferative diabetic retinopathy were higher in higher grade of microalbuminuria (Grade II and Grade III). A statistically significant association between microalbuminuria grade and severity of retinopathy was observed (p<0.001). Total cholesterol was found to be high (240 mg/dl) in 13.74%patients. Prevalence of retinopathy was 60.7%, in patients having high total cholesterol levels. Proportional difference in severity of retinopathy in patients with different total cholesterol levels was found to be statistically significant (p=0.002). Trivariate analysis between severity of retinopathy, microalbuminuria and serum cholesterol levels, revealed that in microalbuminuria grade 0, difference in prevalence of retinopathy in patients with different serum cholesterol levels was not found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Duration of diabetes and microalbuminuria have been found to be the independent risk factors for diabetic retinopathy, but serum cholesterol levels did not show an independent role in our study. The findings in present study endorsed the view that microalbuminuria poses a risk for diabetic retinopathy which is affected by duration of diabetes, level of glycemic control and lipid levels.