Retinopathy as a biomarker of morbidity in people with diabetes mellitus
International Journal of Development Research
Retinopathy as a biomarker of morbidity in people with diabetes mellitus
Received 10th August, 2021; Received in revised form 26th September, 2021; Accepted 04th October, 2021; Published online 30th October, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Laís Souza dos Santos Farias. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The aim of the study was to identify biomarkers of morbidity in people with diabetic retinopathy (DR). This is an integrative literature review of studies addressing DR as a biomarker of morbidity. Full studies published between 2010 and 2020 in English, Spanish and Portuguese languages were included. The search was conducted in the VHL, PubMed and ScIELO databases, using morbidity, biomarkers and diabetic retinopathy as descriptors. Six articles were selected, corresponding to the objective of the study. Despite the diversity of biomarkers indicating morbidity in people with DR, it was found that the research findings were similar, four referring to macrovascular complications and two about microvascular complications. The close relationship between DR and these complications, showed that damage to the retinal microvasculature and its progression leads to the development of complications, which can be screened using predictive biomarkers of morbidity, thus reducing the high indicators of diabetes morbidity and mortality.