A systematic study of structure and function in diabetic macular oedema

The construction of a lexicon for grading of OCT in DMO and the validation of unique tomographic biomarkers such as disorganization of the inner retinal layers (DRIL), and its association with severity of DR is of importance as it has the potential to change the approach to counseling and management of the ocular manifestations in patients with DM.<br>The prospective study identified key cut off functional points that separate normal controls from DM but no DR.

While best corrected visual acuity is routinely used in clinical practice and was found to be a valuable measure that reflected the early visual deficits in DM, near visual acuity and low luminance deficit at near which represent more global assessment of macular function showed that these were more sensitive to changes that occur prior to the development of clinically visible DR and are likely to be of value in disease prognosis.<br><br>Finally our analysis showed that RNFL thickness in DM patients may be a valuable tool in the assessment of DR even before the appearance of overt clinical retinopathy and SD-OCT may serve as useful instrument to closely monitor changes in RNFL thickness in early stage of DM.