Occurrence of cystoid macular edema after uneventful phacoemulsification in diabetic patients without retinopathy: A hospital-based comparative study

Abstract

This study aims to determine the incidence of CME after uneventful phacoemulsification in diabetic patients without any signs of retinopathy and nondiabetic patients in early post-operative periods. The present study was a prospective, comparative, hospital-based study conducted from December 2019 to December 2020 in the Ophthalmology department of a tertiary care referral hospital in Eastern India. All patients aged between 50 to 80 years of either sex with cataract grade nuclear sclerosis II–III with or without cortical cataract and early posterior subcapsular cataract undergoing uncomplicated phacoemulsification surgery by a single surgeon were included in the study. The patients were divided into 2 groups. Group 1 consisted of Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with cataracts with no retinopathy changes on funduscopy and group 2 included healthy non-diabetic patients with cataracts. Comprehensive baseline evaluation including central retinal thickness (CRT) measurement using optical coherence tomography was done in all cases. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and CRT were assessed 1 week and 6 weeks following surgery. Seventy-four patients were included in the study. Both the groups consisted of 37 cases each. The mean age in group 1 and group 2 was 62.24 ± 6.36 and 63.30 ± 6.39 years respectively. One patient in each group developed clinical CME in the postoperative period. The incidence of CME in our study was 2.7%. Improvement in BCVA was comparable in both groups and statistically insignificant. An increase in CRT was found to be statistically significant (P= 0.047) in group 1 at the 6th week follow-up. Visual outcomes in diabetic patients without retinopathy are similar to normal patients following uncomplicated phacoemulsification surgery.