Prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy in Known Diabetics with Macrovascular Complications

Diabetic retinopathy, mainly a disorder of retinal vessels is influenced by the duration of the disease. From a total sample of 100 patients, a significant association was observed in the duration of diabetes and prevalence of diabetic retinopathy (P-value=0.000), as well as macrovascular complications of diabetes (P-value=0.001). This implies that with increasing duration of diabetes, the chances of prevalence of its complications increases. there was a significant association observed in duration of diabetes and macrovascular complications of diabetes in the group of 44 patients with diabetic retinopathy (P-value=0.049). There are studies suggesting diabetic retinopathy as a predictor of cardiovascular mortality in individuals both type 1 and type 2 DM. A positive association was not observed between the duration of diabetes and macrovascular complications of diabetes in the remaining 56 patients with no diabetic retinopathy (P-value=0.682). This suggests that presence of diabetic retinopathy can be a predictor of macrovascular complications due to diabetes.