Variation in central corneal thickness in diabetes: A comparative prospective study at a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Diabetes being the greatest challenge of the century and the fact that it affects almost all of the tissues and organs in the body warrants research into the effects of diabetes on every structure. This study was designed with the aim of finding out any association between diabetes and central corneal thickness and to evaluate the effect of diabetes treatment on central corneal thickness. Objectives a. To find out the differences between CCT values amongst diabetic and non-diabetic patients, if any. b. To assess the presence of any significant change in these measurements after successful control of hyperglycaemia. Methods: A comparative prospective study was conducted in the Dept. of Ophthalmology, Sree Mookambika Institute of Medical Sciences, Kulasekharam to evaluate the effect of diabetes on CCT. A total of 84 subjects were studied which included 42 diabetics. After thorough systemic and ocular CCT was measured using ultrasound pachymeter. The study was initiated after obtaining ethical clearance from the institution's ethical clearance committee. The collected data was analysed using SPSS software version 20.0. Results: Majority of the study subjects were male in both diabetic group (52.4%) and non-diabetic group (54.8%). The mean CCT among non-diabetics were 529 and among diabetics were 554.5. Students 't' test was used to compare the corneal thickness between diabetic and non-diabetic patients. P value less than 0.05 is considered as significant. In this study it is found that there is significant difference in CCT OD 1 and CCT OS 1 in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. And the difference in CCT was found to be statistically significant. In this study we have also found out that there is strong positive correlation between CCT and diabetic control as per the pearson coefficient evaluation. In this study it is found that there is no significant difference in CCT following diabetic control in diabetic patients. Also, CCT was not correlated with the duration of diabetes. But the effect of control was not evaluated with serial HbA1c and a few patients didn't have good control of diabetes either. Conclusion:Diabetes is a serious and extremely prevalent systemic illness in today's scenario which was previously considered a disease of the affluent, diabetes has become a problem of epidemic proportions, contributing to significant morbidity and mortality. And India is moving fast in this race to become a Diabetes Capital of the world. Such being the case, it warrants further research in the field by the medical fraternity, to aid in prevention, early diagnosis, delaying progression and management of the disease. The effects of diabetes on the eye have been studied but as the prevalence of diabetes increases with all the generation, it demands further detailed research activities into the effect's diagnosis and management of diabetes in the eye. In our study we tried to bring to light the effects of diabetes on corneal thickness, which in turn might affect even the management of glaucoma. We evaluated a group of d...