Abstract:Objective: To explore the changes in serum trefoil factor 1 (Tff1) and bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) levels in patients with type 2 diabetes retinopathy and the diagnostic value of both for type 2 diabetes retinopathy. Methods: From January 2022 to January 2024, 186 patients with type 2 diabetes were selected as the study group. According to whether they had retinopathy, they were assigned into a retinopathy group of 52 cases and a non retinopathy group of 134 cases. Another 186 volunteers who underwent health check ups were selected as the control group. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was applied to detect the expression levels of Tff1 and BMP4 in all serum samples. Pearson method was applied to analyze the correlation between serum Tff1, BMP4 levels and clinical data. Multifactor Logistic method was used to analyze the influencing factors of retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients. ROC curve was drawn to analyze the diagnostic value of serum Tff1 and BMP4 levels for retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients. Results: Compared with the control group, the serum Tff1 expression level decreased and BMP4 expression level increased in the study group (non retinopathy group and retinopathy group) patients (P<0.05); and the serum Tff1 expression level in the retinopathy group was lower than that in the non retinopathy group, while the BMP4 expression level was higher than that in the non retinopathy group (P<0.05). Pearson analysis showed that the expression level of Tff1 in type 2 diabetes patients was negatively correlated with the duration of type 2 diabetes, glycosylated hemoglobin level, and triglyceride level, while BMP4 was positively correlated (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic analysis showed that the duration of type 2 diabetes, glycosylated hemoglobin, triglyceride, Tff1, BMP4 were the influencing factors of retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients (P<0.05). ROC curve results showed that the area under the curve (AUC) value of the combination of serum Tff1 and BMP4 in the diagnosis of retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients was 0.901, which was greatly higher than that of Tff1 (Z=2.069, P=0.039) and BMP4 (Z=2.072, P=0.038) separately. Conclusion: The expression level of serum Tff1 in patients with type 2 diabetes retinopathy decreases, while the expression level of BMP4 increases. The combination of the two has high diagnostic value for type 2 diabetes retinopathy.
