erum and Tear Level of Nerve Growth Factor in Diabetic Retinopathy Patient Original Reearch Article

Purpoe To meaure erum and tear nerve growth factor (NGF) concentration in diabetic retinopathy (DR) patient to determine whether the NGF correlated with parameter aociated with DR. Deign Cro-ectional comparative tudy. Method The tudy enrolled 254 DR patient and 71 nondiabetic control. Patient demographic characteritic and diabetic parameter, including blood ugar level, HbA1c, liver and renal function, were evaluated in two eparate univerity hopital. erum and tear NGF concentration and the ratio of NGF to total protein (TP) in erum and tear fluid were determined. Reult erum and tear NGF level were found to be higher in proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) patient (98.7 ± 12.1 ng/ml in erum, 45.6 ± 6.3 ng/ml in tear) than in nondiabetic control (18.5 ± 6.1 ng/ml in erum and 8.3 ± 4.7 ng/ml in tear) and nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) patient (26.6 ± 5.1 ng/ml in erum and 8.6 ± 4.2 ng/ml in tear; p < .001 for both erum and tear difference). imilarly, NGF level were higher in PDR patient than in control and NPDR patient after adjuting for poible confounding factor uch a age, gender, erum blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and diabetic parameter. In addition, the NGF-to-TP ratio for both erum and tear fluid wa higher in the PDR group compared with the control and NPDR group. NGF level correlated well with diabete duration, HbA1c, and blood ugar level and diabetic nephropathy. Concluion NGF concentration may be a good parameter for evaluating DR tatu. In addition, erum and tear NGF concentration correlated trongly, indicating that tear fluid aay may offer an effective, accurate, and noninvaive option for NGF meaurement.