EVALUATION OF DIABETIC AND NON-DIABETIC PATIENTS' MACULAR THICKNESS FOLLOWING CATARACT SURGERY. A PROSPECTIVE CASE-CONTROL STUDY.

Background:  Diabetes accelerates cataract development. After cataract surgery, optical tissue damage causes problems. Cystoid development causes macular oedema. Edoema thickens the macula and impairs the retinal blood barrier. Non-invasive optical coherence tomography investigates retinal layers. This approach evaluates macular and retinal thickness. Diabetic retinopathy increases macular thickness. This study assesses cataract surgery patients' macular thickness. Edoema is 30%+ thicker than baseline. The study includes diabetics and non-diabetics. Method: This was a prospective case-control study conducted at the Department of Ophthalmology, Pradyumna Bal Memorial Hospital, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (PBMH-KIMS), KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. All the subjects’ baseline visual acuity, macular thickness, and macular anatomy or pathology were phacoemulsification documented. The participants underwent either manual SICS or Phacoemulsification cataract surgery. Visual acuity and macular thickness, along with morphological changes in the macula, were observed in all the patients on POD-1, post-operatively at 1 week and 4 weeks.  Results:  21.5% of the patients with diabetes developed macular oedema, and only 5% of the control participants developed macular oedema after the cataract surgery. Conclusion:  The visual acuity of diabetic patients is severely affected after undergoing cataract surgery, irrespective of the modality of the surgery. The risk of developing macular oedema is greater in diabetic patients with retinopathy compared to non-diabetics.  Recommendation: People with diabetic retinopathy who have advanced cataracts and need surgery or laser therapy to fix their vision should start diabetes treatment right away so that the shape of their macular cells does not change permanently