Alterations of Retinal Pigment Epithelium-Photoreceptor Complex in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus without Diabetic Retinopathy: A Cross-Sectional Study.

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Aim A cross-sectional study was performed to examine the alterations of the retinal pigment epithelium– (RPE–) photoreceptor complex layer in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) without diabetic retinopathy (DR), using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Methods Patients with type 2 DM without DR and healthy controls without DM were recruited. All participants underwent examinations including SD-OCT. The thickness measurements of the retinal neural layers were calculated after automatic segmentation. An independent-sample t-test was used to compare the means of the thickness of retinal neural layers in patients with DM and healthy controls. Results Sixty-seven eyes from 67 patients with DM and 30 eyes from 30 healthy controls were included in this study. No significant differences were found in age (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (P = 0.601), gender (Conclusion Lesions in the RPE–photoreceptor complex are present without vascular abnormalities, which may precede the alterations of ganglion cells in patients with type 2 DM.