SUA/SCr was significantly associated with diabetic retinopathy in patients with T2DM; although its incremental predictive improvement was modest, it yielded significant additional discriminative power for DR risk stratification and may serve as a supportive auxiliary indicator for identifying T2DM patients at high DR risk.
Of 1091 T2DM patients initially recruited, 427 met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were divided into DR and non-DR groups.
DR and non-DR groups differed significantly in many baseline characteristics, including SUA and SUA/SCr.
DR status was positively correlated with age, disease duration, HbA1c, SUA, and SUA/SCr, and negatively correlated with C-peptide, ALB, AST, ALT, γ-GT, and TBIL.
Elevated SUA/SCr was associated with higher DR risk among T2DM patients in both univariate and multivariable logistic regression.
SUA/SCr showed favourable discriminative performance for DR on ROC analysis, with an AUC of 0.774.
Adding SUA/SCr to the baseline DR-prediction model improved prediction by IDI but not by NRI.
The authors conclude that SUA/SCr may serve as a supportive auxiliary indicator for identifying T2DM patients at high DR risk, though its incremental predictive improvement was modest.
This study looked at whether the ratio of uric acid to creatinine in the blood is linked to diabetic retinopathy, an eye complication of type 2 diabetes that can cause vision loss. Uric acid levels are affected by kidney function, so the researchers divided uric acid by creatinine, a kidney-function marker, to account for this. They analyzed 427 patients with type 2 diabetes from one hospital in China, comparing those with and without retinopathy. Patients with retinopathy had higher uric acid-to-creatinine ratios. A higher ratio was linked to greater odds of retinopathy even after accounting for other factors such as age, diabetes duration, and blood sugar control (HbA1c). As a stand-alone test, the ratio distinguished patients with and without retinopathy fairly well (AUC 0.774). A cut-off of 3.68 correctly identified about 80% of those with retinopathy and about 67% of those without it. When the ratio was added to a model that already used other risk factors, it improved prediction only modestly. One statistical measure (IDI) showed a small, significant gain, while another (NRI) did not. This research suggests the ratio could be a useful supporting marker for flagging people with type 2 diabetes who may be at higher risk of retinopathy, but it is not a replacement for eye exams. The study was done at a single hospital and shows association, not cause, so more research is needed to confirm the findings.
Wang L, Zhu Z, Gong Y, Wang G. (2026). Correlation between serum uric acid-to-creatinine ratio and diabetic retinopathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.. Frontiers in endocrinology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2026.1977560