Visual outcomes after cataract surgery in patients with type 2 diabetes

Session Details

Session Title: Cataract Surgery: Special Cases

Session Date/Time: Tuesday 17/09/2019 | 08:30-10:30

Paper Time: 09:06

Venue: Free Paper Forum: Podium 2

First Author: : N.Shorstein USA

Co Author(s): :    L. Herrinton   L. Liu   S. Alexeef   A. Karter   L. Amsden   J. Carolan              

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To compare diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity, duration of diabetes and preoperative HbA1c with visual outcome following phacoemulsification for cataract in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Setting:

Kaiser Permanente Northern California

Methods:

Retrospective medical record extraction of 65,370 health plan members controlling for confounding factors and clustering of eyes within patients using linear mixed effects regression models.

Results:

Patients with diabetes and no DR were as likely as those without diabetes to achieve BCVA of 20/20 (OR 1.01, CI 0.94-1.10). The odds of 20/25 or worse postoperative vision increased with severity of retinopathy duration of diabetes, and insulin dependence, but not preoperative HbA1c. Although the odds of postoperative 20/20 was lower in patients with DR, every DR group averaged four lines of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) improvement, the same as patients without diabetes. Longer duration of diabetes, insulin dependence, and elevated HbA1c were not associated with worse postoperative outcomes.

Conclusions:

Patients with DR were less likely to achieve 20/20 vision but gained as many lines of vision from phacoemulsification as patients without diabetes. We see no evidence for delaying cataract surgery from diabetes patients with elevated HbA1c.

Financial Disclosure:

None