The effect of insulin pump therapy in retinal vasculature in type 1 diabetic patients

Role of Systemic Factors in Improving the Prognosis of Diabetic Retinal Disease and Predicting Response to Diabetic Retinopathy Treatment

Topic

To review clinical evidence on systemic factors that might be relevant to update diabetic retinal disease (DRD) staging systems, including prediction of DRD onset, progression, and response to treatment.

Clinical relevance

Systemic factors may improve new staging systems for DRD to better assess risk of disease worsening and predict response to therapy.

Methods

The Systemic Health Working Group of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative reviewed systemic factors individually and in multivariate models for prediction of DRD onset or progression (i.e., prognosis) or response to treatments (prediction).

Results

There was consistent evidence for associations of longer diabetes duration, higher glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and male sex with DRD onset and progression. There is strong trial evidence for the effect of reducing HbA1c and reducing DRD progression. There is strong evidence that higher blood pressure (BP) is a risk factor for DRD incidence and for progression. Pregnancy has been consistently reported to be associated with worsening of DRD but recent studies reflecting modern care standards are lacking. In studies examining multivariate prognostic models of DRD onset, HbA1c and diabetes duration were consistently retained as significant predictors of DRD onset. There was evidence of associations of BP and sex with DRD onset. In multivariate prognostic models examining DRD progression, retinal measures were consistently found to be a significant predictor of DRD with little evidence of any useful marginal increment in prognostic information with the inclusion of systemic risk factor data apart from retinal image data in multivariate models. For predicting the impact of treatment, although there are small studies that quantify prognostic information based on imaging data alone or systemic factors alone, there are currently no large studies that quantify marginal prognostic information within a multivariate model, including both imaging and systemic factors.

Conclusion

With standard imaging techniques and ways of processing images rapidly evolving, an international network of centers is needed to routinely capture systemic health factors simultaneously to retinal images so that gains in prediction increment may be precisely quantified to determine the usefulness of various health factors in the prognosis of DRD and prediction of response to treatment.

Financial Disclosures

Proprietary or commercial disclosure may be found in the Footnotes and Disclosures at the end of this article.

Continuous Glucose Monitor, Insulin Pump, and Automated Insulin Delivery Therapies for Type 1 Diabetes: An Update on Potential for Cardiovascular Benefits

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is rising in all age groups. T1D is associated with chronic microvascular and macrovascular complications but improving glycemic trends can delay the onset and slow the progression of these complications. Utilization of technological devices for diabetes management, such as continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and insulin pumps, is increasing, and these devices are associated with improvements in glycemic trends. Thus, device use may be associated with long-term prevention of T1D complications, yet few studies have investigated the direct impacts of devices on chronic complications in T1D. This review will describe common diabetes devices and combination systems, as well as review relationships between device use and cardiovascular outcomes in T1D.

RECENT FINDINGS

Findings from existing cohort and national registry studies suggest that pump use may aid in improving cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension and dyslipidemia. Furthermore, pump users have been shown to have lower arterial stiffness and better measures of myocardial function. In registry and case-control longitudinal data, pump use has been associated with fewer cardiovascular events and reduction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality. CVD is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in T1D. Consistent use of diabetes devices may protect against the development and progression of macrovascular complications such as CVD through improvement in glycemic trends. Existing literature is limited, but findings suggest that pump use may reduce acute cardiovascular risk factors as well as chronic cardiovascular complications and overall mortality in T1D.

Long-term complications of type 1 diabetes: what do we know and what do we need to understand?

Long-term complications of type 1 diabetes (T1D) include microvascular complications and macrovascular disease. Despite the important advances in the treatment of T1D of the last decades, these complications still represent the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with T1D. Extensive evidence indicates that structural and functional alterations of the kidney, retina, nerves and large arteries occur already in the first years after the onset of diabetes. We performed a comprehensive review of the available evidence on screening, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of vascular complications of T1D. In particular, we focused on three major challenges related to long-term complications of T1D: 1) finding of new biomarkers and diagnostic methods able to identify early signs of complications; 2) identifying specific risk factors for the development of these complications; 3) identifying and implementing new therapeutic strategies able to prevent the development and progression of vascular complications.