Recent researches have demonstrated good correlation between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and diabetic nephropathy (DN); however, this relationship seems less clear-cut when VEGF was measured in blood samples. We tended to explore the possible association between serum VEGF and glycemic control and diabetic nephropathy severity in Chinese older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
This study retrospectively enrolled 595 older T2DM adults at random. Participants were clinically grouped across the urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) and the HbA1c tertiles by genders. Linear regressions were performed for the correlation of VEGF with HbA1c and UACR and binary logistic regressions for the odds of DN after adjusting for confounders. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted for the predictive value of VEGF for DN.
Both males and females with DN exhibited higher VEGF levels than non-DN (
Serum VEGF was strongly associated with UACR and HbA1c in both genders, and could be regarded as a predictive biomarker for glycemic control and diabetic nephropathy in older adults with T2DM.