The prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing worldwide and is expected to affect 300 million people worldwide by 2025. Persons with diabetes are at increased risk of developing microvascular complications such as diabetic retinopathy (DR), a leading cause of blindness, diabetic nephropathy (DN), a leading cause of renal failure, and diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), a leading cause of diabetic foot disorders and lower limb amputations. As many older persons with diabetes are living longer, the prevalence of these microvascular complications is also on the rise despite improvements in control of glycemia, blood pressure, and lipid levels. Given that these microvascular complications are largely preventable, it is important to identify novel risk factors or biomarkers associated with early detection of onset/progression of DR, DN, and DPN. Several biomarkers representing underlying pathogenic mechanisms including inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, hemostasis and microangiopathy, biomarkers at the level of proteome and metabolome, and biomarkers representing end-organ damage such as retinal microvascular parameters have been evaluated for predicting the risk of DR, DN, and DPN. Similarly, several novel risk factors such as lower 25 (OH) D levels and presence of one microvascular complication (e.g., DR predicting DN or DPN predicting DN/DR) have also been investigated for predicting the risk of these conditions.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that seek to identify novel risk factors and/or biomarkers for predicting the onset/progression of DR, DN, and DPN and correlations between these conditions.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Novel biomarkers and/or risk factors associated with DR
• Novel biomarkers and/or risk factors associated with DN
• Novel biomarkers and/or risk factors associated with DPN
• Relationship between concomitant diabetic microvascular complications
• Predictive models for identifying diabetic patients at risk of progression to DR/DN/DPN or for stratification of risk
• Health services and outcomes research related to risk factors associated with DR/DN/DPN