Plasma Total Homocysteine Levels in Diabetic Retinopathy

摘要

We read with great interest the recently published article by Malaguarnera et al. [1]. This study was aimed at evaluating the plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) levels in diabetic patients with and without retinopathy for the progression of diabetic retinopathy. In conclusion, higher plasma levels of tHcy have been found in diabetic patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy compared to both nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetics without retinopathy. However, we would like to share our thoughts and contributions to the original study.First, there was a significant difference between patient groups in terms of age, in the original study. However, there are age specific normal ranges for total homocysteine (tHcy) levels [2]. This is critical because comparison of patient groups with different age distributions may lead to a bias in tHcy results arising from different normal values by age. It should be better to select age-matched patient groups in such studies evaluating parameters with age specific normal values.