Pathomorphology is correlated with visual acuity changes

The visual acuity (VA) in diabetic retinopathy is associated with the retinal oedema in the parafovea and the pathomorphology and photoreceptor status at the fovea claims a study in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Dr Tomoaki Murakami and his team at the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan, used 125 consecutive eyes of 73 patients in a retrospective, observational study.

All patients underwent spectralis optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the outcome measures were status of external limiting membrane (ELM), cystic changes and pathomorphology. The correlation of logarithm of the minimal angle of resolution (logMAR) was studied.

Three types of pathomorphology were identified at the fovea. These included cystoid macular oedema (CME), serous retinal detachment (SRD) and a lack of CME or SRD. The average logMAR with the CME pathomorphology was worse than the SRD pathomorphology.

It was found that parafoveal thickening or disturbed ELM was strongly correlated with low VA. However, SRD did not have a strong correlation with VA.