Figure 1.

The relationships between skin AF and the stage of retinopathy or nephropathy in type 1 diabetes mellitus. The results were shown by box plots. A line within a box indicates the median, and the upper and lower squares within the box include quartiles of the points. The upper and lower horizontal bars indicate the maximum and minimum values excluding outliers. Outliers are indicated by circles. A: The patients were classified into three stages of retinopathy; i.e., “none,” “background,” and “preproliferative or proliferative.” B: The patients were classified into five classifications of CKD according to National Kidney Foundation practice guidelines (14). Stages 4 and 5 were combined because they had small numbers of the patients. In the regression analysis, stages 1, 2, and 3 were coded as 1, 2, and 3, whereas stages 4 and 5 were combined and coded as 4. C: The patients were classified into five albuminuria-based stages of nephropathy as described in the Methods. Stages 3 and 4 were combined because they had small numbers of patients. In the regression analysis, stages 1, 2, and 5 were coded as 1, 2, and 4, whereas stages 3 and 4 were combined and coded as 3.