Evaluation of Early Retinal and Choroidal Microvascular Changes in Type 2 Diabetes Patient Without Retinopathy

Özet

Purpose: To investigate changes in retinal vascular plexuses and choriocapillaris in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) without diabetic retinopathy (DR) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). Methods: A total of 48 DM and 48 healthy control subjects were included. Mean superfi cial and deep vessel density (SVD, DVD) and fl ow in superfi cial and deep layers, choriocapillaris (CC) and FAZ area were measured by OCTA for analysis. Also, patients were categorized into two groups as high-risk (≥ 5 years) and low-risk ( 0.05). The mean DVD and FAZ area were correlated with HbA1c levels and the duration of DM. Comparison between the high-risk (20 patients) and low-risk groups (28 patients) revealed signifi cant difference in superfi cial and deep layer’s fl ow, CC and FAZ area (p<0.05). Also, SVD and DVD measurements of the DM patients were signifi cantly different between high-risk and low-risk groups for all macular regions (p<0.05 for all). Conclusions: OCTA can show the damage in patients without any clinically signifi cant DR before the clinical manifestation in diabetic patients. Our results suggested that OCTA might be a promising tool for periodic screening of diabetic patients without DR.