The following are the most important diseases or complications that may be contributed to by diabetic retinopathy:
Eyes and ocular appendages (H00-H59).
- Ablatio retinae (retinal detachment).
- Amaurosis (blindness) (0.2-0.5% of people with diabetes).
- Diabetic cataract (diabetes-related cataract).
- Diabetic maculopathy (disease of the macula; macular edema or ischemic damage to the macula/site of sharpest vision at the center of the retina)
- Hemorrhage into the vitreous
- Progressive visual field loss
Cardiovascular system (I00-I99)
- Apoplexy (stroke)*
- Coronary artery disease (CAD; disease of the coronary arteries)*
* Even early stages of diabetic retinopathy have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease by a factor of 1.69.
Prognostic factors
Risk factors for the development or progression of diabetic retinopathy and/or maculopathy:
- Duration of diabetes
- Degree of hyperglycemia (hyperglycemia; higher HbA1c); more informative than HbA1c in type 2 diabetics are glucose normals (time of glucose values in the normal range):
- Patients in the quartile with the highest normal time percentages were significantly less likely to have severe retinopathy than those in the quartile with the lowest values (3.5% versus 9.7%); Conclusion: Severe glucose fluctuations are increasingly associated with severe retinopathy.
- Presence/degree of arterial hypertension (high blood pressure).
- Nephropathy (kidney disease)
- Pregnancy
- For type 1 diabetes: male gender
Risk calculator for severe complications from retinopathy or diabetic foot: see Welcome to QDiabetes(Amputation and blindness)-2015: http://qdiabetes.org/amputation-blindness
