Risk factors for having diabetic retinopathy at first screening in persons with type 1 diabetes diagnosed under 18 years of age.

Objective: To determine the risk factors for having diabetic retinopathy (DR) in children and young people (CYP) with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) at first screening.

Methods: Records from the Diabetes Eye Screening Wales (DESW) service for people in Wales, UK, with T1DM diagnosed under age 18 years were combined with other electronic health record (EHR) data in the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank. Data close to the screening date were collected, and risk factors derived from multivariate, multinomial logistic regression modelling.

Results: Data from 4172 persons, with median (lower quartile, upper quartile) age 16.3 (13.0, 22.3) years and duration of diabetes 6.6 (2.3, 12.3) years were analysed. 62.6% (n = 2613) had no DR, 26.7% (n = 1112) background DR, and 10.7% (n = 447) had referable DR (RDR). No RDR was observed under 19 years of age. Factors associated with an increased risk of DR were diabetes duration, elevated HbA, and diastolic blood pressure. People diagnosed with T1DM at 12 years or older had an additional risk for each year they had diabetes compared to those diagnosed before age 12 controlling for the diabetes duration (odds ratios 1.23 and 1.34, respectively).

Conclusions: This study found that 37.4% of the study cohort had DR at first screening, the risk being greater the longer the duration of diabetes or higher the HbA and diastolic blood pressure. In addition, people diagnosed at 12 years of age or over were more likely to have DR with each additional year with diabetes.