Retinal Vessel Diameter as a Clinical Predictor of Diabetic Retinopathy Progression

Relationship of retinal vascular calibre and diabetic retinopathy in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Desheng Diabetic Eye Study

“…Our data also showed that wider venular calibre, but not arteriolar calibre, was related to glucose levels and dyslipidaemia (higher triglycerides and lower levels of HDL cholesterol), consistent with observations from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis study23 and the Singapore Malay Eye Study 24 25. Nguyen has suggested that the retinal arteriolar and venular calibre changes may reflect different pathophysiological processes 26…”

The progress in understanding and treatment of diabetic retinopathy

“…Furthermore, it is essential that patients identified as having sight-threatening retinopathy at screening programmes are referred timely to Hospital Eye Services; adequate patient pathways that allow urgent referral and treatment to be delivered, if required, need to be in place if the final goal of screening programmes, namely prevention of visual loss, is to be accomplished. (Ikram et al, 2013;Wong, 2011).…”

“…Previous studies have investigated the association of retinal vessel caliber with diabetic retinopathy in both T1D and T2D (reviewed by (Wong, 2011)) with strong evidence showing venular widening in both cross-sectional (Klein et al, 2003;Tsai et al, 2011) and prospective studies (Broe et al, 2014;Klein et al, 2004;Roy et al, 2011). In addition, narrower arteriolar caliber has been associated with diabetic retinopathy (Klein et al, 2003;Klein et al, 2004) in a cross-sectional analysis and wider arteriolar diameter in T1D in two prospective studies (Alibrahim et al, 2006;Cheung et al, 2008) although additional longitudinal studies have reported no correlation between retinal arteriolar diameter and diabetic microvascular complications (Klein et al, 2007;Klein et al, 2004).…”

The clinical implications of recent studies on the structure and function of the retinal microvasculature in diabetes

“…Retinal vascular calibre may be predictive of the risk of diabetic retinopathy and CVD [67,98]. In the WESDR study, retinal venular widening over time was associated with the subsequent incidence and progression of diabetic retinopathy [99].…”