title: Novel therapeutic approaches for diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy.
abstract: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that in the long-term increases the microvascular and macrovascular degenerative complications thus being responsible for a large part of death associated with diabetes. During the years, while preventive care for diabetic patients has improved, the increase in the prevalence of diabetes worldwide is continuous. The detrimental effects of diabetes mellitus result in microvascular diseases, which recognize hyperglycemia as major determinant. A significant number of potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of diabetic microvascular complications have been proposed, but the encouraging results obtained in preclinical studies, have largely failed in clinical trials. Currently, the most successful strategy to prevent microvascular complications of diabetes is the intensive treatment of hyperglycemia or the normalization of glycometabolic control achieved with pancreatic and islet transplantation. In this review, we focus on the novel therapeutic targets to prevent the development and progression of diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy microvascular complications.
authors.affiliation: Division of Transplant Medicine, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Usuelli
authors.affiliation: Division of Transplant Medicine, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy. Electronic address: larocca.ennio@hsr.it.
authors.forename: Ennio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: La Rocca
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy; D003928:Diabetic Nephropathies / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D003930:Diabetic Retinopathy / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation; D016035:Pancreas Transplantation / Q000379:methods
keywords: Diabetic nephropathy; Diabetic retinopathy; Hyperglycemia; Microvascular complications; Type 1 diabetes; Type 2 diabetes