negative association of serum il-6 and il-17 with type-ii diabetes retinopathy

background: diabetes mellitus (dm) is a health concern which leads to complications such as retinopathy. pakistan has 6.9 million people living with dm and this toll will be doubled by 2025. objective: to determine serum il-6 and il-17 of type 2 diabetes mellitus (t2dm) patients with retinopathy. methods: in this cross-sectional casecontrol study, 212 subjects enrolled which were categorized into 3 groups. group-i included 30 subjects without diabetes, group-ii consisted of 30 subjects with t2dm without retinopathy and group-iii consisted of 152 subjects with t2dm and retinopathy. serum il-6 and il-17 levels were determined by elisa. data was analysed using spss 17.0 and one way anova to observe group mean differences. results: longer mean duration of disease was detected in group-iii than group-ii (p=0.007). highest il-6 level was detected in group-ii and highest il-17 level was detected in group-i. for il-6, significant differences were detected among groups in total, between group-i and group-iii and between group-ii and group-iii (p