Kjaer LK, et al. - This prospective cohort study was performed to evaluate whether 8-oxoGuo was correlated with specific cardiovascular and all-cause mortality risk. Researchers indicated that in patients with type 2 diabetes, high RNA oxidation was associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk. Targeting oxidative stress via interventions with long-term follow-up could explain the predictive potential of the biomarker 8-oxoGuo.

• The researchers measured urinary biomarkers for nucleic acid oxidation in a cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes aged ≥60 years (n = 1,863).
• In addition, they investigated biochemical measurements, questionnaire findings, and Central Person Registry information to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) for log2-transformed RNA oxidation using Cox regression.

• 173 of 1,863 patients had died (9.3%), including 73 patients who died of cardiovascular disease (42.2%), during the 5-year follow-up.
• After multiple adjustments, doubling of RNA oxidation was correlated with an HR of all-cause mortality of 2.10 (95% CI 1.63-2.71; P < 0.001) and an HR of cardiovascular death of 1.82 (95% CI 1.20-2.77; P=0.005).
• Compared with the lowest quartile of RNA oxidation, the 5-year absolute risks (ARs) of all-cause mortality (AR 13.9 [95% CI 10.8-17.0] vs AR 6.10 [95% CI 4.00-8.30]) and cardiovascular mortality (AR 5.49 [95% CI 3.44-7.55] vs AR 3.16 [95% CI 1.59-4.73]) were approximately 2 times higher in the highest quartile of RNA oxidation.