Cumulative Incidence and Risk Factors of Diabetic Retinopathy

In order to investigate the cumulative incidence and risk factors for diabetic retinopathy among non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, 116 patients which given diagnosis of diabetes at age 30 years or older who had been followed-up for more than 10 years and were initially free from retinopathy were analysed retrospectively. Several risk factors for retinopathy were analysed at the initial examinations: sex, age at the onset, age at the initial examination, duration, fasting plasma glucose(FPG), two-hour postpradial plasma glucose(pp2), blood pressure, hypertension status, therapeutic regimen, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglyceride, body mass index. After a mean follow-up time of 11.7 years. The cumulative incidence was 31.0%. By univariate analysis. Significant risk factors of retinopathy were age at the onset, age at the initial examination. FPG, PP2, therapeutic regimen. However, By using multivariate analysis. Independent risk factors were not found.

Retinal Vascular Tortuosity in Hypertension

We measured actual (A) and the shortest (B) length of nasal and temporal retinal vessels (arterioles and venules) from the optic disc with polaroid color photography. There were 71 eyes in normal blood pressure group and 51 eyes in hypertension group (>or=141/91). By calculation of tortuosity ratio (A/B), tortuosity of the retinal vessels was evaluated in the two groups. The tortuosity ratio of temporal retinal artelY and vein was higher in hypertension group than in normal group (p<0.05), and there was no statistical difference between tortuosity and age. In hypertension group, systolic pressure over 161 mmHg, the tortuosity ratio of the temporal retinal artery was higher than in normal group (p

Posterior Vitreous Detachment in Diabetic Macular Edema

We investigated the prevalence of posterior vitreous detachment using +90D aspheric Volk lens in 30 patients(44 eyes) 60 years of age or older with diabetic retinopathy The patients were divided into two groups after taking fluorescein angiography, that is, 14 patients(20 eyes) with macular edema and 16 patients(24 eyes) without macular edema Posterior vitreous detachment was observed in 5 out of 20 eyes(25%) in edema group and 13 out of 24 eyes(54%) in no edema group. This difference was found to be statistically significant, indicating that diabetic cases without macular edema have significanatly higher rate of complete posterior vitreous detachment than those with macular edema(p=0.015). This study demonstrated that normally occuring posterior vitreous detachment due to aging process in over 60 years of age has the potential to protect them from macular edema.