The effect of coexisting autoimmune thyroiditis in children with Type 1 diabetes on optical coherence tomography results.

Objective: To assess the influence of thyroid hormones status and coexistence of autoimmune thyroiditis on optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) results in children with Type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Research Design and Methods: In the prospective, observational study (n = 175) we analyzed the impact of thyroid hormones on OCT results and the differences between the matched groups of children with T1D (n = 84; age = 13.14 ± 3.6; diabetes duration = 5.99 ± 3.3 years) and the children with T1D and autoimmune thyroiditis (AT) (n = 20; age = 13.94 ± 3.6; diabetes duration = 6.7 ± 4 years). We analyzed the following parameters: fovea avascular zone (FAZ), foveal thickness (FT), parafoveal thickness (PFT), ganglion cell complex (GCC), loss volume (global-GLV, focal-FLV), capillary vessel density: superficial (whole-wsVD, foveal-fsVD, parafoveal-psVD), and deep (whole-wdVD, foveal-fdVD, parafoveal-pdVD. The differences between the groups were tested by the unpaired t-Student test, Mann-Whitney U test as appropriate, whereas p level .05 was recognized as significant.
Results: We detected the significant correlations between thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level and PFT (r = -0.14; p < .05), psVD (r = -0.18; p < .005). The level of free triiodothyronine (FT3) was correlated with psVD (r = -0.14; p < .05). We found significant correlation between free thyroxine (FT4) and fsVD (r = -0.17; p < .01). In the studied T1D and AT groups there were statistical differences in FT (p < .005), PFT (p < .03), GCC (p < .01), and GLV (p < .003). We did not observe any significant differences in the FAZ area between the groups.
Conclusions: In our patients the co-occurrence of T1D and AT worsens the status of retinal parameters. Further studies are necessary to observe these relations and their potential influence on the occurrence of diabetic retinopathy (DR).
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