Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a blinding disease of increasing prevalence that is caused by a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Here we describe the patient recruitment methodology, case and control definitions, and clinical characteristics of a study sample to be used for genome-wide association analysis to detect genetic risk variants of DR.

Methods: One thousand six hundred sixty-nine participants with either type 1 (T1) or type 2 (T2) diabetes mellitus (DM) aged 18 to 95 years were recruited in Australian hospital clinics. Individuals with T2DM had disease duration of at least 5 years and were taking oral hypoglycaemic medication, and/or insulin therapy. Participants underwent ophthalmic examination. Medical history and biochemistry results were collected. Venous blood was obtained for genetic analysis.

Results: Six hundred eighty-three diabetic cases (178 T1DM and 505 T2DM participants) with sight-threatening DR, defined as severe non-proliferative DR, proliferative DR or diabetic macular oedema were included in this analysis. Eight hundred twelve individuals with DM but no DR or minimal non-proliferative DR were recruited as controls (191 with T1DM and 621 with T2DM). The presence of sight-threatening DR was significantly correlated with DM duration, hypertension, nephropathy, neuropathy, HbA1C and body mass index. Diabetic macular oedema was associated with T2DM (P < 0.001), whereas proliferative DR was associated with T1DM (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: Adoption of a case-control study design involving extremes of the DR phenotype makes this a suitable cohort, for a well-powered genome-wide association study to detect genetic risk variants for DR.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	diabetic macular oedema, diabetic retinopathy, genome-wide association study
Research Division:	Biomedical and Clinical Sciences
Research Group:	Ophthalmology and optometry
Research Field:	Ophthalmology
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Clinical health
Objective Field:	Clinical health not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Hewitt, AW (Professor Alex Hewitt)
UTAS Author:	Burdon, KP (Professor Kathryn Burdon)
ID Code:	90062
Year Published:	2014
Web of Science® Times Cited:	7
Deposited By:	Menzies Institute for Medical Research
Deposited On:	2014-03-26
Last Modified:	2017-11-06
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