Retinal Arteriolar Caliber Predicts Incident Retinopathy

The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) Study

  1. Sophie Louise Rogers, MEPI1,
  2. Gabriella Tikellis, PHD1,
  3. Ning Cheung, MBBS1,
  4. Robyn Tapp, PHD1,
  5. Jonathan Shaw, MBBS, PHD2,
  6. Paul Z. Zimmet, MBBS, PHD2,
  7. Paul Mitchell, MBBS, PHD3,
  8. Jie Jin Wang, MMED, PHD13 and
  9. Tien Yin Wong, MBBS, PHD12
  1. 1Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  2. 2International Diabetes Institute, Caulfield, Australia
  3. 3Centre for Vision Research, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
  1. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Tien Yin Wong, MBBS, PhD, Centre for Eye Research, University of Melbourne, 32 Gisborne St., Victoria 3002, Australia. E-mail: twong{at}unimelb.edu.au

Abstract

Changes in retinal vascular caliber may reflect subclinical microvascular disease and provide prognostic information regarding risk of retinopathy. In this study, we examined the prospective association of retinal vascular caliber with retinopathy risk in an Australian population-based cohort. A total of 906 participants without retinopathy at baseline had retinal vascular caliber measured from photographs and were followed-up for 5 years for incident retinopathy. After adjusting for age, sex, systolic blood pressure, A1C, and other risk factors, individuals with wider retinal arteriolar caliber (widest 25% vs. the remaining three-quarters of the population) were more likely to develop incident retinopathy (odds ratio 4.79 [95% CI 1.57–14.58]). This association was not significant in individuals without diabetes. Venular caliber did not predict incident retinopathy. Our findings suggest that retinal arteriolar dilatation is a specific sign of diabetic microvascular dysfunction and may be a preclinical marker of diabetic retinopathy.

Footnotes

  • Published ahead of print at http://care.diabetesjournals.org on 9 January 2008. DOI: 10.2337/dc07-1622.

    Additional information for this article can be found in an online appendix at http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc07-1622.

    The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

    • Accepted January 2, 2008.
    • Received August 16, 2007.
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  1. Published online before print January 9, 2008, doi: 10.2337/dc07-1622 Diabetes Care April 2008 vol. 31 no. 4 761-763
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