Diabetic retinopathy and urinary albumin excretion rate in type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetic patients.

The aim of this study was to access the associations between urinary albumin excretion rate (AER) and diabetic retinopathy and its major risk factors in 105 type II non-insulin-dependent diabetic (NIDDM) patients. In 44.7% of the patients, there were no signs of retinopathy (NR), whereas 30.4% had background (BR) and 24.7% proliferative retinopathy (PR). Patients with retinopathy, both BR and PR, were older and the duration of diabetes was longer, than in the group consisting of patients with NR. Patients with retinopathy had elevated AER (BR: 9.4 +/- 2.8 micrograms/min, PR: 19.3 +/- 1.7 micrograms/min; vs. NR: 4.3 +/- 2.1 micrograms/min, p < 0.001). Patients with retinopathy had a higher systolic blood pressure and the metabolic control was worse than those without retifiopathy. In the diabetic group as a whole, raised AER was correlated with the duration of diabetes (rs = 0.287, p < 0.01) and systolic blood pressure (rs = 0.269; p < 0.01).