Comparison of Macular Oedema after Cataract Surgery in Diabetic and Non-Diabetic Patients using OCT

Background: Diabetes is a major cause of blindness in developed and developing world. Cataract is increased in frequency in diabetics and makes an important contribution to diabetic blindness. With OCT various parameters of macula can be obtained which helps in understanding of relationship of macular status before and after cataract surgery.Objectives: This study uses OCT to compare cystoid macular oedema after cataract surgery in diabetic and non diabetic patients.Methods: This prospective, comparative study was conducted on 100 patients during October 2017 to September 2018. Patients were divided into Group I (50 eyes of metabolically controlled diabetic patients) and Group II (50 eyes of non diabetic patients). OCT was used to assess macular oedema in both groups preoperatively and postoperatively at 1st and 3rd month. Results: In Group I, the mean foveal thickness significantly increased by 13% and 8.9% from the baseline at 1 and 3 months respectively (p= 0.001, 0.003). In Group II the mean foveal thickness increased by 10.4% and 7% from the baseline at 1 and 3 months. (p= 0.001, p=0.022). The difference in increase in mean foveal thickness between Group I and Group II was statistically significant at 1 and 3 months (p=0.005, p=0.001) respectively.Conclusion: The results in our study suggest that OCT is effective tool in estimating the post operative macular oedema and should be done if available to get baseline macular status and diagnosis. The preoperative evaluation of macular status in diabetics by OCT is important in determining post operative visual gain. Keywords: macular oedema, optical coherence tomography, diabetes, cataract surger