Clinical correlation between diabetic macular edema and diabetic nephropathy in the Mexican population

Objective: To determine whether there is an association between the presence of macular edema diagnosed by optical coherence tomography and diabetic nephropathy calculated by the degree of proteinuria in type 1 and 2 diabetic patients.Method: A descriptive, prospective, non-experimental and cross-sectional study was conducted between June and October 2022 on patients over 18 years of age diagnosed with type 1 and 2 diabetes with more than 5 years of evolution, who provided informed consent.Ophthalmologic and nephropathic data were evaluated, and potential associations were analyzed using Spearman's correlation.Results: Of the 30 patients with diabetes and ocular abnormalities, 23 (76.6%) had diabetic macular edema, and in turn, they presented up to grade IV and V of renal disease; in contrast, patients without macular edema did not present these degrees of renal damage.Creatinine clearance ranged from 11 to 145.7 ml/min (average: 71).A statistically significant negative association (r = -0.4123;p = 0.0453) was found between macular thickness of the right eye and creatinine clearance; however, no significant association was found in the left eye (r = -0.07309;p = 0.7284).Conclusions: The most common complication reported by diabetic patients was blurred vision and significant decrease in visual acuity with an average of 20/428 for the right eye and 20/224 for the left eye, which are not incapacitating but relevant, as vision loss in these patients is progressive and irreversible.It was demonstrated that greater thickening at the macular level was associated with greater decrease in creatinine clearance; however, 65.22% of patients had some degree of renal damage without being aware of it.