To Study the Association of HbA1c with Retinopathy, Neuropathy and High Risk Foot among Diabetic Patients Attending Rural Tertiary Care Hospital of Tamil Nadu, India

Background: Blindness and non-traumatic amputation of foot are among the biggest morbidities complicating diabetes mellitus. Burden of diabetes and its complications is increasing in India. The current study was designed to find out the association of HbA1C with these diabetic microvascular complications i.e., neuropathy leading to high risk diabetic foot and retinopathy. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional analytical study. 222 patients were examined with established Diabetes between ages 27 to 85 years, who visited the hospital from June 2012 to October 2014. Assessment of retinopathy, neuropathy and HbA1c was done by standardised methods. The obtained data was analysed statistically by SPSS version of 21.0. Results: The mean age of the study population was 55.4 ± 11.1 years (range 27-85 years). There were 145 (65.32%) males and 77 (34.68%) were females. The mean level of HbA1c was 8.6 ± 2.1%. Patients with HbA1c >7% included 107 males and 55 females. The prevalence of DR in our study was 49.10% of which NPDR was seen in 38.29% and PDR was seen in 10.81% of patients. The prevalence of neuropathy was seen in 62 (27.93%) patients. The condition of footwear was poor in 32.5%. Conclusion: A strong association was found between HbA1C and neuropathy leading to high risk diabetic foot and retinopathy. These associations suggest the need for earlier diagnosis of these devastating complications and predicting their severity