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Article History

Received: 20 September 2024

Accepted: 27 January 2025

First Online: 31 March 2025

Acknowledgements

: We thank staff involved in the conduct of the German Diabetes Study (GDS) for technical help and support. We would also like to thank our study coordinators J. Benga and S. Jansen (Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Düsseldorf) for their organisational and technical support. This work was initially exclusively supported by the German Diabetes Center (DDZ), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG, Berlin, Germany) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of Northrhine-Westphalia (MKW-NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany) and as a multicentre study now receives additional funding by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Berlin, Germany) through the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.). Some of the data were presented as an abstract at the ARVO Annual Meeting, June 2021, Vol. 62, Issue 8, ‘Detection of early microvascular changes in diabetic patients with OCTA’.List of GDS Study Group members: The GDS Study Group consists of M. Roden (speaker), H. Al-Hasani, B. Belgardt, G. J. Bönhof, G. Geerling, C. Herder, A. Icks, K. Jandeleit-Dahm, J. Kotzka, O. Kuß, E. Lammert, W. Rathmann, S. Schlesinger, V. Schrauwen-Hinderling, J. Szendroedi, S. Trenkamp, R. Wagner and their co-workers, who contributed to the design and conduct of the GDS.

: All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its electronic supplementary material (). The datasets are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and after discussion of the request within the GDS steering committee. The study protocol and the individual methods have been published in the cohort profile [] and are unrestrictedly available.

: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was initially exclusively supported by the German Diabetes Center (DDZ), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG, Berlin, Germany) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of Northrhine-Westphalia (MKW-NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany) and as a multicenter study now receives additional funding by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Berlin, Germany) through the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.), which is supported by a grant (01GI0925) from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

: SK has participated in the scientific advisory board of Johnson & Johnson. GG has participated in consulting for and/or scientific advisory boards of Santen, Holostem/Chiesi, Novartis, Thea Pharma and Med1 Ventures. PS received speaker honoraria from Bayer. MR received fees for consulting, lecturing or serving on advisory boards from Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Echosens, Eli Lilly, Merck-MSD, Madrigal, Novo Nordisk, Madrigal, Synlab and Target RWE, and has performed investigator-initiated research with support from Boehringer Ingelheim and Novo Nordisk to the DDZ. The research of MR is also supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG; RTG/GRK 2576), the European Community (HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-02-01: Panel A) to the INTERCEPT-T2D consortium and the Schmutzler-Stiftung. RG has participated in consulting for and/or scientific advisory boards of BayerHealthCare, RochePharmaAG and Abbvie.

: SK and RG conceived the pilot study and evaluation, and all authors contributed to the design and operational delivery. VG performed the statistical analysis. All authors contributed to the drafting and critical review of the manuscript, and to the final approval of the submitted version. SK and RG are the guarantors of this work and are responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole.