Menia NK, Morya AK, Gupta PC, Ramachandran R. Ocular biomarkers in diabetes mellitus with diabetic kidney disease: A minireview. World J Nephrol 2025; 14(3): 109470 [DOI: 10.5527/wjn.v14.i3.109470]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Arvind Kumar Morya, MD, Professor, Senior Researcher, Department of Ophthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bibi Nagar, Hyderabad 508126, Telangana, India. bulbul.morya@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Urology & Nephrology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Nephrol. Sep 25, 2025; 14(3): 109470 Published online Sep 25, 2025. doi: 10.5527/wjn.v14.i3.109470
Ocular biomarkers in diabetes mellitus with diabetic kidney disease: A minireview
Nitin K Menia, Arvind Kumar Morya, Parul C Gupta, Raja Ramachandran
Nitin K Menia, Department of Ophthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Vijaypur 180001, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Arvind Kumar Morya, Department of Ophthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad 508126, Telangana, India
Parul C Gupta, Department of Ophthalmology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh 160012, Punjab, India
Raja Ramachandran, Department of Nephrology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh 160012, India
Author contributions: Morya AK and Gupta PC conceptualised the research topic; Menia NK and Ramachandran R wrote the manuscript; Menia NK, Gupta PC and Morya AK edited the manuscript and submitted the revised manuscripts with all the documents.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Arvind Kumar Morya, MD, Professor, Senior Researcher, Department of Ophthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bibi Nagar, Hyderabad 508126, Telangana, India. bulbul.morya@gmail.com
Received: May 15, 2025 Revised: June 17, 2025 Accepted: July 22, 2025 Published online: September 25, 2025 Processing time: 128 Days and 2.1 Hours
Abstract
Diabetes mellitus ranks among the most prevalent non-communicable diseases worldwide, affecting a vast number of individuals. It can impact almost every organ in the body, leading to serious complications such as diabetic retinopathy (DR), diabetic nephropathy, and diabetic neuropathy. Scientific literature indicates that patients with severely compromised kidney function may develop non-responsive DR. Moreover, anaemia in individuals with diabetic kidney disease (DKD) complicates DR and can contribute to significant health issues. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a widely used non-invasive imaging tool for diagnosing, managing, and predicting DR. OCT findings in patients with DR and DKD include cystoid macular oedema, diffuse retinal thickening, disruptions in the ellipsoid layer, hyperreflective dots, and damage to the external limiting membrane. The review examines OCT patterns of diabetic macular oedema in DKD, correlating these patterns with declines in kidney function and visual acuity. Additionally, we review various biomarkers linked to DR in DKD patients and the growing importance of novel imaging biomarkers in predicting and connecting the severity of DR with DKD.
Core Tip: The assessment of optical coherence tomography (OCT) biomarkers in diabetic retinopathy (DR) and their correlation with diabetic kidney disease plays an essential role in the prognostication of kidney disease. The OCT biomarkers can help to detect nephropathy before the clinical signs appear and facilitate an early initiation of renoprotective therapy, which may potentially reduce morbidity and mortality due to renal disease in patients with DR.
