Retinal Arteriolar Caliber Predicts Incident Retinopathy: The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) Study
- Sophie Louise Rogers, MEpi1,
- Gabriella Tikellis, PhD1,
- Ning Cheung, MBBS1,
- Robyn Tapp, PhD2,
- Jonathan Shaw, MBBS PhD2,
- Paul Z. Zimmet, MBBS PhD2,
- Paul Mitchell, MBBS PhD3,
- Jie Jin Wang, MMed PhD1,,3 and
- Tien Yin Wong, MBBS PhD (twong{at}unimelb.edu.au)1,,2
- 1 Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
- 2 The International Diabetes Institute, Caulfield, Australia
- 3 Centre for Vision Research, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
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. 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, gender, systolic blood pressure, HbA1c and other risk factors, persons with wider retinal arteriolar caliber (widest 25% versus 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 people 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
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- Received August 16, 2007.
- Accepted January 2, 2008.
- Copyright © American Diabetes Association
