To investigate whether diabetic macular edema (DME) is associated with worse renal function outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease, Shih-Hsiang Ou and colleagues conducted a retrospective study using EMRs from approximately 90 million patients. The researchers grouped patients into DME and non-DME cohorts. Initial findings indicated that patients with DME had increased medication use, poorer renal function, and poorer blood sugar control than those without DME. Ou and team then matched patients based on demographics, socioeconomic status, lifestyle, comorbidities, and medication use. Compared with the non-DME cohort, patients with DME had a sig-nificantly higher risk for end-stage renal disease, dialysis, and renal transplantation. These findings were consistent regardless of follow-up durations, initial estimated glomerular filtration rates, and glycated hemoglobin levels. However, the DME group had a lower risk for all-cause mortality.
