Objective To explore the role of capillary leakage index in the evaluation of retinopathy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Methods The clinical data of 134 diabetic retinopathy(DR) patients were retrospectively analyzed.According to the clinical severity, the DR patients were divided into the non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy(NPDR) group(n=70) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy(PDR) group (n=64).The general data, C-reactive protein(CRP), serum albumin(ALB), hemoglobin A1c, capillary leakage index(CLI), central macular thickness(CMT) and macular retinal volume(MRV) were collected.The Pearson correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between CLI, CMT and MRV, and the logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the risk factors of PDR.

Results There was no statsitical significance in the age, sex, systolic blood pressure and ALB between NPDR group and PDR group(P>0.05).The CRP, CLI, CMT and MRV in the PDR group were significantly higher than those in NPDR group(P < 0.01).The results of Pearson correlation analysis showed that the CLI was significantly positively correlated with CMT and MRV in DR patients(r=0.847、0.762, P < 0.01).The ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC predicted by CLI for PDR patients was 0.851(95%CI: 0.781-0.921), the sensitivity was 85.9%, and the specificity was 82.9%.The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis of PDR patients showed that the CLI, CMT, MRV and CRP were the independent risk factors of PDR patients(P < 0.05 to P < 0.01).

Conclusions The CLI is associated with the severity of retinopathy in DR patients, and can be used as a clinical indicator for early prediction of PDR, which is worthy of popularization and application.