Age, sex and duration relationships and prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in pakistani population

ABSTRACT

In a 1959 study, the incidence of diabetes mellitus in the general population of Pakistan was 1.7% in persons below the age of 40, and 3% in persons over 40. In two recent reports, this incidence has been reported to be respectively 3.37% and 7.7%. In 1989, the report on a small series concluded that the incidence of retinopathy in Pakistani diabetics was 50%. In our nonselective randomized study of 3,000 Pakistani diabetic patients registered with the Akhtar Eye Hospital, Karachi between 1982 and 1987, the incidence of diabetic retinopathy was 26% [780 patients out of a total of 3,000 patients]. Out of the 780 diabetics with retinopathy, 409 [52.4%] were men and 371 [47.6%] were women. Background retinopathy and proliferative retinopathy occurred with a comparative ratio of 3.81. The highest incidence of retinopathy was seen in patients who had been diabetics for six to 10 years and in patients over the age of 50