title: Retinal arteriolar caliber predicts incident retinopathy: the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study.
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.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Eye Research, University of Melbourne, 32 Gisborne St., Victoria 3002, Australia.
authors.forename: Sophie Louise
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tikellis
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tapp
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Paul Z
authors.initials: PZ
authors.lastname: Zimmet
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Jie Jin
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Tien Yin
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D001160:Arterioles / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D001315:Australia; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003930:Diabetic Retinopathy / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012161:Retinal Artery / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose