Prevalence and incidence of diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetes of Latin America and the Caribbean: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objectives: This systematic review aimed to assess the prevalence and incidence of diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetes of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Methods: We searched Web of Science (WoS)/Core Collection, WoS/MEDLINE, WoS/Scielo, Scopus, PubMed/Medline and Embase databases until January 16, 2023. We meta-analyzed prevalences according to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
Results: Forty-three prevalence studies (47 585 participants) and one incidence study (436 participants) were included. The overall prevalence of retinopathy in patients with T1DM was 40.6% (95% CI: 34.7 to 46.6; I2: 92.1%) and in T2DM was 37.3% (95% CI: 31.0 to 43.8; I2: 97.7), but the evidence is very uncertain (very low certainty of evidence). In meta-regression, we found that age (T1DM) and time in diabetes (T2DM) were factors associated with the prevalence. On the other hand, one study found a cumulative incidence of diabetic retinopathy of 39.6% at 9 years of follow-up.
Conclusions: Two out of five patients with T1DM or T2DM may present diabetic retinopathy in Latin America and the Caribbean, but the evidence is very uncertain. This is a major public health problem, and policies and strategies for early detection and opportunely treatment should be proposed.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Medina-Ramirez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)