Comparison between central choroidal thickness in pregnant diabetic females and pregnant non-diabetic females

Abstract

Objective: To compare choroidal thickness in pregnant women with and without diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods: Sixty pregnant females (60 eyes) were enrolled in this cross-sectional controlled study. They were divided into two groups: Group A (30 patients; 30 eyes) were pregesta-tional diabetic pregnant females, while Group B (30 patients; 30 eyes) were non-diabetic pregnant females. Exclusion criteria were high-risk pregnancy, diabetic retinopathy in Group A subjects, systemic or ophthalmological pathology, drug intake other than vitamin supple-ments and diabetic medications, and large errors of refraction. All patients underwent full ophthalmological examination and enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) to measure the choroidal thickness in the nine zones of the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) map. Results: Our results show that Group A eyes (of pregnant diabetic females) had a highly significant greater choroidal thickness than Group B eyes (of pregnant non-diabetic females) in all nine zones of the ETDRS map (p-value <0.01). Moreover, we found a positive linear correlation between the duration of DM and the degree of choroidal thickening. Conclusion: Pregnant diabetic females have a thicker choroid than that of pregnant non-diabetic females.