The Relation of Retinal Vessel Caliber to the Incidence and Progressionof Diabetic Retinopathy

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Abstract
Despite the efficacy of glycemic and blood pressure control and photocoagulationtreatment in reducing visual loss in persons with diabetes, retinopathy remainsan important cause of visual loss.1 Early detectionby means of dilated eye examinations and close follow-up of those with advancedretinopathy has been advocated to minimize visual loss in persons with diabetes.2 Hyperglycemia, hypertension, microalbuminuria status,duration of diabetes, and pregnancy have been used to define increased riskfor progression of retinopathy and to determine the frequency of such examinations.3 Other than retinopathy severity, no ocular factorshave been consistently associated with the risk for progression to proliferativeretinopathy and incidence of macular edema. Dilated retinal venules have beenconsidered to be common in persons with diabetes, but were difficult to assessconsistently and were not included in schemes classifying the severity ofdiabetic retinopathy.4 Nevertheless, dilatedretinal venules have been associated inconsistently with an increased riskfor progression to proliferative retinopathy in persons with diabetes.5-12 However,most of these observations have been made on selected small samples usingophthalmoscopy, and few have come from population-based studies.