Background: To investigate the association between serum carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) and the presence as well as severity of diabetes retinopathy (DR) in Chinese adult patients with type 2 diabetes.
Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 2012 to November 2018. DR was assessed using Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study criteria. Vision-threatening DR (VTDR) was diagnosed if subjects had severe non-proliferative DR (NPDR), proliferative DR (PDR), or clinically significant macular edema (CSME). Multivariate logistic regression models were applied to explore the associations.
Results: Among the 2696 participants, the overall prevalence of DR was 25.1%, of which the prevalence of mild NPDR, moderate NPDR, and VTDR was 10.8%, 4.5%, and 9.9%, respectively. Serum CA125 level was significantly higher in participants with DR and increased with the severity of DR (P = 0.013). After accounting for age, gender, smoking, drinking, duration of diabetes, anti-diabetic agents use, systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, weight, hemoglobin A1c and fasting plasma glucose levels, CA125 level was significantly associated with subjects in any-severity DR (odds ratio [OR] 1.006 [95% confidence interval CI: 1.002– 1.010], P = 0.006) and VTDR (1.008 [1.003– 1.013], P = 0.001). When CA125 was treated as categorized variables, the prevalence of VTDR might increase as improving CA125 quartiles (P  value for trend = 0.017).
Conclusion: In this study, serum CA125 level was associated with the presence and severity of DR in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes. Further prospective studies should be warranted to validate the feasible role of CA125 as well as other biomarkers.
Keywords: type 2 diabetes, diabetes retinopathy, tumor biomarker, CA125, association