Purpose:
To identify the correlation between severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR), and the thicknesses of the peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer using Optical Coherence Tomography.
Patient and Methods:
A prospective study including diabetic patients (20 eyes) and non-diabetic control subjects (10 eyes). Baseline optical coherence tomography was employed to measure retinal thickness in the macula (superior, inferior, nasal, temporal and central) and the peripapillary zone (superior, inferior, nasal, and temporal). The baseline parameters were correlated between groups of patients requiring panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) (proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR- group) and patients not requiring PRP (Non-Proliferative diabetic retinopathy, (NPDR- group).with the diabetic retinopathy DR stages identified by fluorescein angiography.
Results:
Macular and peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thicknesses in diabetic subjects were significantly greater than that in normal controls. All retinal thickness parameters, and particularly peripapillary circular scans, tended to increase with increasing DR severity.
Conclusion:
Peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness may prove to be a useful criterion for DR severity and may also serve as an indicator of disease progression.