Lower-than-Expected Prevalence and Severity of Retinopathy in an Incident Cohort followed during the First 4–14 Years of Type 1 Diabetes

The authors examined the development of diabetic retinopathy in a population-based cohort of persons with incident type 1 diabetes to investigate the possibility of lowered retinopathy prevalence and severity compared with previous US studies. A total of 474 diabetic persons from Wisconsin were followed from diagnosis through 4-14 years' duration during 1990-2002. Retinopathy was determined by fundus photography at 4, 7, 9, and 14 years' duration. Risk of developing retinopathy was modeled on demographic and diabetes-care characteristics by means of a generalized linear model using the complementary log-log link for interval-censored data. Prevalence of retinopathy increased with duration of diabetes, from 6% at 4 years to 73% at 14 years, and was highest among adults (> or =20 years of age). Risk of developing retinopathy increased with increasing duration, worse glycemic control, and age up to 20 years. Indicators of diabetes care were related to retinopathy through their effect on glycemic control. Improvements in diabetes care leading to better glycemic control may have contributed to the much lower prevalence and less severe retinopathy observed than expected on the basis of a previous report from the same region of Wisconsin. The observed decreased prevalence has important implications for persons with type 1 diabetes, since retinopathy is a serious microvascular complication.