Increased serum cystatin C levels in patients with idiopathic epiretinal membrane

ABSTRACT

Clinical relevance

Increased serum cystatin C may play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic epiretinal membrane (IERM). Physicians should be aware of this relationship and should refer patients to the ophthalmology clinic for screening.

Background

To evaluate the serum cystatin C level in patients with IERM, and its associations with visual acuity.

Methods

Sixty-eight patients with IERM and sixty-nine controls were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Based on the results of optical coherence tomography, patients with IERM were divided into four stages (I, II, III and IV). Serum cystatin C was measured in all participants. Serum cystatin C levels were compared between the control group and IERM group and between the IERM group with different optical coherence tomography stages. Multiple linear regression was used to evaluate the relationship between serum cystatin C and IERM stages and best corrected visual acuity.

Results

Serum cystatin C level was higher in the IERM group than in the control group (P < 0.001). There were statistically significant differences in serum cystatin C among different stages of IERM (P_{I vs II} = 0.011, P_{I vs IV} < 0.001 and P_{III vs IV} = 0.040, respectively). There were significant differences in best corrected visual acuity among different stages of IERM (P_{I vs III} = 0.018, P_{I vs IV} < 0.001, P_{II vs IV} < 0.001 and P_{III vs IV} < 0.001, respectively). Regression analysis showed a positive correlation between serum cystatin C and best corrected visual acuity (t = 2.238 P = 0.029). The cut-off value of receiver operation characteristic curve of serum cystatin C for IERM was 0.775.

Conclusion

This study revealed that serum cystatin C may be involved in the pathogenesis of IERM and can predict its occurrence. Elevated serum cystatin C appears to be associated with the severity of the disease and relatively poor vision acuity in IERM patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Idiopathic epiretinal membrane
• optical coherence tomography
• serum cystatin C
• visual acuity

Acknowledgements

The authors thank their colleagues for their participation in this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Xionggao Huang, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.: 81860172, Xiong-gao Huang and No.: 82160199, Xiong-gao Huang) and Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No.: 821RC1126, Xiong-gao Huang).