A Study on Ocular Manifestations of Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Background: The incidence of detected diabetes in India is rapidly rising and by the time we succeed in preventing the much of a preventable blindness, diabetes is likely to emerge as a leading cause of ocular disease. A large bulk of literature is available describing retinopathy in its various aspects; but the other ocular manifestations of diabetes have been scantily written upon and so their epidemiology is even less well known. Aims: The objective of the study is to find out the incidence of different ocular manifestations of diabetes mellitus. The study is also done to determine the relationship of various risk factors and systemic diseases associated with diabetes mellitus and suggest the measures to prevent various sight threatening complications of diabetes mellitus. Material and Methods: The ocular manifestations were studied in 60 patients attending the eye OPD and the Diabetic Clinic of S. S. G. Hospital, Baroda during a period of 12 months. Results: Cataract was found to be the most common ocular manifestation of diabetes mellitus-35 patients (58.33%).The second most common manifestation was diabetic retinopathy-25 patients (41.66%).Also the most common associated systemic disease was found to be hypertension-20 patients (33.3%). Conclusion: Cataract and retinopathy were the two most common manifestations of diabetes mellitus. Patients having cataract can be very well managed by advanced cataract extraction techniques but to diagnose the early changes of retinopathy is of prime importance. A thorough ocular examination of patients having diabetes is a must, including both anterior and posterior segment examination. Key words: Diabetes Mellitus, Cataract, Diabetic Retinopathy