Our research demonstrated the association of systemic inflammatory response index with diabetic retinopathy among type 2 diabetic patients without related family histories. First of all, we verified that levels of NLR and PLR but not MLR were higher in the DR group. Furthermore, according to our multivariate analysis, not only did NRL serve as an independent risk factor but also the highest quartile of both NLR and PLR added risk to DR. More importantly, addition of NLR and PLR to Hb-based model contributed to reclassification of DR. Through our study, we provide the simple and available blood-based index for DR, promoting the risk stratification of DR among type 2 diabetic patients without family history.
Chronic inflammation plays an essential role in the initiation and progression of type 2 diabetes and further accelerates the deterioration of microangiopathy and macrovascular disease in patients with diabetes [20]. Previous studies have evidenced that peripheral blood leukocytes and their subgroups are associated with macrovascular and microvascular complications among patients with type 2 diabetes [21]. Specifically, peripheral blood leukocytes include lymphocytes, basophils, neutrophils, eosinophils, and monocytes, each type of which holds a unique biological function in systemic inflammation. NLR and PLR are two indexes that represent the integration of two factors and are considered to be new markers of the systemic inflammatory response [14]. Increasing studies have confirmed their association with type 2 diabetes [14, 22]. DR is a common micro-angiopathic complication in diabetes.More and more evidence indicates that inflammation plays an important part in the early and progressive stage of DR [23–25], through inducing the formation of new blood vessels and macular edema [23], damaging the glial crosstalk and causing neuronal loss [26]. In addition, studies have also found that many inflammatory cytokines (such as CRP, TNF-α and VEGF, etc.) increase in patients with DR [27]. And intervention and regulation targeted at the inflammatory response in patients with diabetic retinopathy [28] can prohibit the progression of diabetes and retinopathy.
As two major indexes related to systemic inflammatory, PLR and NLR have been proved to be associated with diabetes and its complications[12, 14]. Apart from genetic epigenetic factors (family history of diabetes and hypertension), our study showed that higher NLR levels significantly increased the risk of DR, which is consistent with the previous results. But compared with the former one, our research has a larger sample size with an enrollment of 470 patients and also excludes the inheritable family history. NLR represents peripheral blood neutrophils to lymphocytes ratio, which integrates different but complementary immune pathways in circulating blood. First of all, elevated NLR can be a manifestation of an increased number of neutrophils, which adhere to the endothelial cell, leading to vascular endothelial damage, and in turn causing extensive chronic inflammation [11, 29].Hence the NLR might reveal the enhanced microvascular inflammation in DR patients. Secondly, lymphocytes serve as a major part of the body's immune response. They have the ability to control and regulate inflammatory responses, and a relatively higher proportion of CD4 T cells were proved to be anti-atherosclerotic [30]. And our study found a decrease in absolute count of lymphocytes among peripheral blood in patients with high-level NLR (NLR:2.36 ± 1.16 in DR group versus 1.97 ± 1.06 in NDR group, p < 0.001;absolute count of lymphocytes:(1.98 ± 0.64)*10^9/L in DR group versus (2.11 ± 0.67)*10^9/L in NDR group,p = 0.031), which indicates the possibility of insufficient immunoregulation due to the fewer lymphocytes, In addition, this study also demonstrated that NLR levels were positively correlated with the duration of diabetes, BUN, and Scr,which is consistent with the previous results[31].
Previous studies have found that PLR is closely related to diabetes and can be used to assess the progress of the disease[32], predict and evaluate the diabetes-related lower limb vascular disease [15], atherosclerosis and diabetic foot ulcers [33]. However, Atak et al didn't found an association between PLR and DR [32], which might be attributed to the small sample size. In our study, though the PLR as a continuous variate didn't show independent association with DR, the highest quartile of PLR indeed adds more than 2 fold risk to the presence of DR. It has been commonly admitted that platelets participate in thrombosis. Moreover, until now, increasing studies thave proved that platelets played an important role in the immuno-inflammatory response.Specifically, platelets can release a variety of immune-regulating cytokines, chemokines, and other mediators, thus regulating the inflammation response in blood vessels in an autocrine or paracrine manner[34]. Meanwhile, it could also regulate neutrophils, endothelial cells, and lymph directly, allowing them to recruit towards injured tissue[35]. Similarly, based on the regulatory function of platelets, increased PLR might represent the relatively active inflammatory response of platelets among DR patients. Additionally, our study also indicates a positive correlation between PLR and diabetes courses and a negative correlation between PLR and BMI. Taken together, we provide the large-sample size based evidence for the role of PLR in DR, and further mechanism studies are also needed in the future.
We also proved that in diabetic patients without a family history of diabetes and hypertension, Hb levels were still negatively associated with the risk of DR independent of established factors. Hemoglobin is a special protein transporting oxygen within red blood cells. And low hemoglobin levels might lead to tissue ischemia and hypoxia, which is one of the key mechanisms of DR occurrence [36]. Studies have found that hemoglobin levels were negatively related to endothelial function and lower hemoglobin levels directly resulted in organ damage [37]. In addition, the level of hemoglobin is an indicator of the anemia condition in our body. According to previous studies, it has been found that the anemia patients held a high level of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) which is closely related to retinal neovascularization [38–39]. Some studies indicated that anemia may enhance oxidative stress [40],because the antioxidant capacity of red cells can be damaged due to anemia [41], which in turn promotes oxidative stress and accelerates presence of DR [42]. In particular, in this study, a combination of systemic inflammation indicators NLR, PLR, and Hb was shown to increase the predictability of DR and help DR reclassification.
The established relationships between some clinical factors and DR in our patient's group were in line with previous ones. Firstly, we found that blood lipid was a risk factor for DR, and the results of this study are consistent with previous one [43], indicating higher TG increased the risk of DR.In addition, in consistency with previous studies, diabetic nephropathy significantly increases the risk of DR with shared pathological mechanism [44–45]. We also observed higher levels of BUN and Scr in DR patients, revealing a potential interaction multi-organ complication under the background of diabetes.
In summary, in people with type 2 diabetes without a family history of diabetes and hypertension, systemic inflammation indicators NLR and PLR are closely related to DR. Higher NLR and PLR increase the risk of DR, and after combined with Hb indicators, they contributed to DR reclassification. To provide more practical and reliable guidance for clinical diagnosis, further multi-center prospective clinical studies and basic researches are also required to elucidate the relationship between the PLR NLR and DR.