Neurofilaments in Tears as Early Biomarkers of Corneal Neurodegeneration in Diabetes Without Retinopathy
Vincenzo Macaione, Francesca Polito, Giovanni W. Oliverio, Emanuela Aragona, Elisa I. Postorino, Maura Mancini, Paola Palino, M’hammed Aguennouz, Pasquale Aragona · 2026
Read Neurofilaments in Tears as Early Biomarkers of Corneal Neurodegeneration in Diabetes Without Retinopathy by Vincenzo Macaione, Francesca Polito, Giovanni W. Oliverio, Emanuela Aragona, Elisa I. Postorino, Maura Mancini, Paola Palino, M’hammed Aguennouz, Pasquale Aragona (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13477539.txt.
Description
Vincenzo Macaione and co-authors tested whether tears can reveal early nerve damage in the cornea of people with type 2 diabetes. They measured neurofilament light chain, a protein released when nerve fibers break down, in blood and tears from twenty patients and twenty healthy controls. The team also imaged corneal nerves with a microscope method that counts fiber length, density, and branching.
Blood levels of the protein did not differ between groups, but tear levels were far higher in the patients. Higher tear levels went with fewer and shorter corneal nerve fibers, a sign of early degeneration. The authors propose tear testing as a simple early marker, useful before eye damage such as retinopathy appears.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Vincenzo Macaione, Francesca Polito, Giovanni W. Oliverio, Emanuela Aragona, Elisa I. Postorino, Maura Mancini, Paola Palino, M’hammed Aguennouz, Pasquale Aragona |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 24 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |