The Risk for Developing Vision Threatening Diabetic Retinopathy is Influenced by Heredity to Diabetes

Abstract

Purpose: Clustering of vision threatening diabetic retinopathy within specific families can be the result of similarities in life style but may also be due to a common genetic background. An evaluation of the role of heredity for the development of diabetic retinopathy may help adjusting control intervals in screening program to each patient's individual risk profile.

Methods: Survival analysis was used to study whether family history of diabetes among men and women with type 1 or type 2 diabetes together with the degree of heredity could be added as risk factors to improve the prediction of the risk for developing proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and diabetic macular edema (DME). The study was conducted on data from 12,281 patients followed in the Aarhus area, Denmark, from 1 January 2003 to 1 July 2019.

Results: The risk for developing PDR was significantly reduced 2–11 years after known onset of diabetes in the presence of female family members with type 1 diabetes, and the risk for developing DME significantly increased 4–24 years after onset of diabetes in the presence of family members with type 2 diabetes of any sex. These hereditary factors were independent of other studied risk factors such as previous cataract surgery, age of onset of diabetes, metabolic regulation and blood pressure.

Conclusions: The presence of family members with diabetes affects the risk for developing vision threatening diabetic retinopathy and affects the risk for developing PDR and DME differently. This evidence may help individualizing the control intervals in screening programmes for diabetic retinopathy.

Keywords:

• Diabetic macular edema
• proliferative diabetic retinopathy
• heredity
• risk factors
• survival analysis

Acknowledgments

The skillful assistance of nurse photographers Helle Hedegaard and Tina Bjerre for registering the data is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

According to the permission from the Danish Data Security Authorities, the data cannot be made generally available.