Long‐term risk factors for diabetic retinopathy and diabetic maculopathy in elderly Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

entitled “Prevalence andrisk factors for diabetic maculopathy and its relationshipto diabetic retinopathy in elderly Japanese patients withtype 2 diabetes mellitus.” The longitudinal observationwas carried out thereafter. In this letter, we report the6-year incidence and risk factors of retinopathy andmaculopathy in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetesmellitus who are 65 years-of-age or older.The details of the participants and methods are pre-sented in the article entitled “Prevalence and risk factorsfor diabetic maculopathy and its relationship to diabeticretinopathy in elderly Japanese patients with type 2 dia-betes mellitus.” A total of 1173 patients with diabetesmellitus who ranged in age from 65 to 85 years wererandomly assigned to either the intensive treatmentgroup or the conventional treatment group. Anophthalmic examination was carried out at baseline andonce a year by ophthalmologists at each hospital withslit lamp biomicroscopy, fundus photography and fluo-rescein angiography. The retinopathy and maculopathywere graded using a clinical severity scale that was basedon the Internal Clinical Diabetic Retinopathy andMacular Edema Disease Severity Scale.