[Clinical and epidemiological aspects of diabetic retinopathy and its relationship with diabetic nephropathy].

Results of clinical and laboratory examinations of 161 diabetics are presented. The main factors or risk of nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy are the duration and degree of compensation of diabetes mellitus, development and stage of diabetic nephropathy, the latter factor replacing in experiments with simulation of diabetic retinopathy the level of arterial hypertension, and the blood serum content of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and ratio of total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The factors of risk of proliferative diabetic retinopathy are duration and degree of compensation of diabetes mellitus, development and stage of diabetic retinopathy with this latter factor replacing in simulation of diabetic retinopathy the level of arterial hypertension, and the blood serum levels of triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fibrinogen, soluble fibrin-monomer complexes, as well as fibrinolytic activity.

[Kidney lesions in non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus].

Because little is known about disordered metabolism of uric acid as a pathogenetic mechanism of renal damage in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) it was studied in 75 NIDDM and 48 IDDM patients. Clinical examination of the patients included evaluation of purin metabolism according to serum uric acid, diurnal urine excretion, uric acid clearance. Hyperuricemia occurred more frequently in NIDDM.

[Immunologic aspects of renal involvement in patients with type II diabetes mellitus].

Besides the known factors contributing to the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy, the role of immune mechanisms in types I and II diabetes is discussed of late; the contribution of autoimmune mechanisms to pathogenesis of noninsulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM) is virtually unknown. Seventy-six patients with NIDDM and 48 with insulin-dependent condition were examined. Under study were levels of antibodies to FxIA and renal glomerular basal membrane antigens in the blood sera of donors and patients with types I and II diabetes, as well as concentrations, size, and pathogenicity of immune complexes.