Macular thickness assessment in diabetic patients without retinopathy

Abstract

ObjectiveA comparative study of macular thickness measurements with optical coherence tomography (OCT) in patients with diabetes mellitus without diabetic retinopathy (DR) versus healthy controls.BackgroundDR is one of the most common causes of deterioration of vision in the adult population. Recently, some studies showed that the degeneration of the retinal neuronal cells starts before the microvascular changes appear clinically.Patients and methodsSixty-five patients with diabetes mellitus (without DR underwent full ophthalmic examination; colored fundus photography, fluorescin fundus angiography, and OCT. Mean macular thickness measured by OCT was calculated for the central fovea, the perifoveal, and the parafoveal area of the macula which compared to healthy controls.ResultsThe mean central foveal retinal thickness (RT) of patients without DR shows to be thinnest when compared to the healthy group, which is statistically significant. The perifoveal retinal thickness of patients without DR proves to be the thinnest when compared to the healthy group, which is statistically highly significant. While, in the parafoveal macular zone, no statistically significant difference in RT could be detected between both groups.ConclusionThis results support the view of neurodegeneration in diabetes in the early stage of retinopathy which show a highly significantly decrease in perifoveal RT in patients without DR compared to healthy controls.