Diagnostics (Aug 2021)

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. Report 4: Glycated Haemoglobin

  • Carolina Bernal-Morales,
  • Aníbal Alé-Chilet,
  • Ruben Martín-Pinardel,
  • Marina Barraso,
  • Teresa Hernández,
  • Cristian Oliva,
  • Irene Vinagre,
  • Emilio Ortega,
  • Marc Figueras-Roca,
  • Anna Sala-Puigdollers,
  • Marga Gimenez,
  • Enric Esmatjes,
  • Alfredo Adán,
  • Javier Zarranz-Ventura

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11091537
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 9
p. 1537

Abstract

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate specifically the relationship between glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA) parameters in type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (DM). A total of 478 type 1 DM patients and 115 controls were included in a prospective OCTA trial (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03422965). Subgroup analysis was performed for controls, no diabetic retinopathy (DM-no DR) and DR patients (DM-DR), and HbA1c levels. OCT and OCTA measurements were compared with HbA1c levels (current and previous 5 years). DM-no DR patients with HbA1c levels >7.5% showed lower VD than DM-DR and controls (20.16 vs. 20.22 vs. 20.71, p p = 0.04), after adjusting for age, gender, signal strength index, axial length, and DM disease duration. DM-DR patients with HbA1c > 7.5% presented greater CRT than DM-no DR and controls (270.8 vs. 260 vs. 251.1, p p = 0.03). In conclusion, greater levels of HbA1c are associated with OCTA changes in DM-no DR patients, and with structural OCT changes in DM-DR patients. The combination of OCTA and OCT measurements and HbA1c levels may be helpful to identify patients at risk of progression to greater stages of the diabetic microvascular disease.

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