Objective: Relationship between diabetic retinopathy (DR) with glycemic and lipid profile in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients remains a controversy. Few of these data came from Indonesian populations. We aim to learn relationship of glycemic and lipid profile with DR severity in a Balinese population.
Methods: This analytic cross-sectional study uses medical records of over 30-years old DR patients diagnosed by ophthalmologists at Sanglah General Hospital, Bali, Indonesia. Determinants measured were glycemic status (FBG, post-prandial glucose and HbA1c levels) and lipid profile (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglyceride). Samples were dichotomised based on DR advancement into non-proliferative DR (NPDR) and proliferative DR (PDR); and the number of eyes affected into one-sided and two-sided.
Results: Of 53 patients, 64.20% were males and mean age was 53.26 years (95%CI 51.10-55.43). PDR and both-sided DR each make up 81.1%. Mean FPG was 152.79 mg/dL (95%CI 141.65-163.93), PPG 249.70 mg/dL (95%CI 232.16-267.25), HbA1c 7.67 mg/dL (95%CI 7.29-8.04), total cholesterol 197.03 mg (95%CI 188.11-205.95), LDL 126.81 mg/dL (95%CI 119.20-134.41), HDL 47.54 mg/dL (95%CI 44.75-50.34), and triglyceride 153.71 mg/dL (95%CI 138.68-168.74). No significant difference found between NPDR and PDR for glycemic status and lipid profile (p>0.05) while FPG was found higher for both-sided DR (p < 0.01). The possibility of having both-sided DR increased with higher FPG level (OR 1.07, 95%CI 1.01-1.12), while no other determinants found with significant association.
Conclusion: FPG associates with DR severity based on the number of affected eyes whereas no determinants associate with advancement of NPDR to PDR. This implies that FPG could be employed to predict progression of retinopathy complication in diabetes. This result is preliminary thus requiring bigger sample size. Future study needs to involve inflammation parameters in addition to glycemic and lipid profile to confirm association of all three potential determinants with DR severity.