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Autofluorescence photography may help detect diabetes, study suggests
Flavoprotein autofluorescence measurements may be useful for rapidly and noninvasively identifying diabetic metabolic tissue stress and disease severity, a recent study suggested.
"Development of flavoprotein autofluorescence technology is likely to result in a tool that will improve [diabetes mellitus] screening and disease management," the study authors said.
Victor M. Elner, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor measured retinal flavoprotein autofluorescence levels of 21 patients with diabetes and compared the results with flavoprotein autofluorescence levels of 21 healthy, age-matched controls. All patients were stratified into three groups based on age by decade: between 30 and 39 years, between 40 and 49 and between 50 and 59 years.
The investigators used an electron-multiplying charged-coupled device camera containing 467-nm excitation with a 512 x 512-pixel chip to measure retinal flavoprotein autofluorescence for each flash at 535 nm. The average intensity and the average curve width of retinal flavoprotein autofluorescence were determined by analyzing histograms of pixel intensities that were plotted for each eye.
Among patients with diabetes, the mean age was 44.8 years and the mean documented duration of the disease was 10.5 years, the authors noted.
The mean average intensity and average curve width levels in diabetes patients were significantly greater than those in controls across all 3 consecutive decades of life studied (P = .004 and P = .006, respectively).
Adjusting for age, a comparison of the mean average intensity and average curve width levels in diabetes patients vs. controls was consistent with the results found in each age category (P =.001 and P < .001, respectively), the authors reported.
Diabetes patients with retinopathy in at least one eye had significantly greater average intensity and average curve width than diabetes patients without retinopathy in either eye (P =.002 and P =.005, respectively), according to the study, published in the July issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.