Güvenç Toprak, Ümit Doğan, Abdulfatih Kaplan, Hakan Özkan, Bourak İsmail, Satılmış Bilgin
Experimental Biomedical Research - 2026;9(1):40-49
Aim: To evaluate the hypothesis that the uric acid-to-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (UHR) may serve as a potential biomarker for predicting diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: A total of 175 patient files were retrospectively analyzed between January 2023 and June 2024 at the Ophthalmology Clinic of Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University. The study consisted of 100 diabetic patient files with diabetic retinopathy and 75 diabetic patient files without diabetic retinopathy. Parameters were recorded and the Uric Acid/HDL Ratio (UHR) was calculated. Results: There were marked differences between the DR and control groups in hematological and biochemical variables including hemoglobin (HGB), HDL-C, lymphocyte count (LYM), red blood cell distribution width (RDW), platelet distribution width (PDW), alanine transaminase (ALT), serum albumin, and UHR. UHR correlated positively with RDW and C-reactive protein (CRP) and negatively with HGB, LYM and albumin. In ROC analysis, a UHR >0.1156 showed 86.1% sensitivity and 82.4% specificity for predicting DR. In multivariate analysis, UHR was independently associated with diabetic retinopathy (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The association between UHR and chronic inflammatory parameters emphasizes the role of inflammation in DR pathogenesis and supports UHR as a potential biomarker to determine likelihood and severity of DR in T2DM patients. Longer-term research is needed to confirm UHR's clinical utility.
