Vitreomacular Interface Abnormalities in Diabetic and Non-Diabetic Patients Using Optical Coherence Tomography
patients16,17. Maastricht study calculated the prevalence
gender with advancing age is associated with a higher
frequency of VIAs. Optical coherence tomography
proved to be a viable tool for the detection of various
vitreomacular interface abnormalities.
of all VIAs and stratified them according to the age,
sex and diabetics status18.
In our study we observed prevalence of ERM to be
10.7%. This prevalence was higher in diabetic patients
(6.4%) as compared with non-diabetics (3.5%). The
prevalence of ERM was reported to be 6.1% and 3.4%
in Maastricht and Handan studies respectively16,18. The
Beaver study reported much higher prevalence of
ERM (34.1%)17. All studies confirmed that the
frequency of ERM increased with age. Our results are
consistent with Maastricht study as we also found
significantly higher prevalence of ERM in diabetics
versus non-diabetics.
Ethical Approval
The study was approved by the Institutional review
board/Ethical review board.
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
Authors’ Designation and Contribution
The frequency of vitreomacular traction was found
to be 4.3% in this study which is in accordance with
the results of the Maastricht study18 (7.0%) but differ
from the findings of Beaver Dam Study17 (26%). An
earlier study reported prevalence of VMT to be 23.9%
in patients with diabetic macular edema which is
Uzma Hamza; Assistant Professor: Study design, data
collection, Critical analysis, Statistical analysis,
Manuscript writing.
Waqas Asghar; Medical Officer: Data collection,
Critical analysis, Statistical analysis, Manuscript
writing.
significantly higher than our finding (4.3%)15,19,20,21
.
Qasim Lateef Chaudhry; Associate Professor:
Concept, Design, Statistical analysis, final review.
This implies that patients with diabetic macular edema
have higher chances of developing vitreomacular
tractions and should undergo OCT testing to check for
macular pathology early in the course of the disease.
Muhammad Hassaan Ali; Senior Registrar: Data
collection, Statistical analysis, final review
The frequency of macular hole in our study was
found to be 1.79% with females affected 4 times more
than males (2.69% versus 0.69%). Results of an earlier
study showed prevalence of macular hole to be 0.5%.
Similarly, we found prevalence of lamellar hole to be
0.71%, which is consistent with results of the
Maastricht Study (0.9%) but less than the findings of
Sana Jahangir; Vitreoretina fellow: Data collection,
analysis, final review.
REFERENCES
1. Tabish SA. Is diabetes becoming the biggest epidemic
of the twenty-first century? Int J Health Sci. 2007; 1
(2): 5-8.
2. Copete S, Martí-Rodrigo P, Muñiz-Vidal R, Pastor-
Idoate S, Rigo J, Figueroa MS et al. Preoperative
vitreomacular interface abnormalities on Spectral
Domain Optical Coherence Tomography as risk factor
for pseudophakic cystoid macular edema. Retina. 2019;
39 (11): 2225-32.
3. Chang CK, Cheng CK, Bai CH, Peng CH, Hu CC.
Development of vitreomacular interface abnormality in
patients with diabetic macular edema. Taiwan J
Ophthalmol. 2012; 2 (3): 93-8.
4. Aziz-ul-Hasan Aamir, Zia Ul-Haq, Saeed A Mahar,
Faisal Masood Qureshi, Ibrar Ahmad. Diabetes
Prevalence Survey of Pakistan (DPS-PAK): prevalence
of type 2 diabetes mellitus and prediabetes using
HbA1c: a population-based survey from Pakistan.BMJ
Open. 2019; 9 (2): e025300.
the Beaver Dam study (3.6%)17,18
.
The frequency of macular edema, macular cyst
and posterior vitreous detachment were found to be
significantly higher in diabetic patients when
compared to non-diabetics (p-value < 0.05). This
shows that the suspicion for diagnosing VIAs should
be kept high in diabetic patients and where needed,
OCT imaging should be done to acquire high
resolution images of the vitreomacular interface for
early diagnosis of various macular pathologies.
The limitation of this study is the small number of
patients and a larger study is required to be done to
confirm the results in the general population.
CONCLUSION
VIAs were found in significantly larger number in
diabetics compared to non-diabetic patients and female
5. Mumtaz SN, Fahim MF, Arslan M, Shaikh SA, Kazi
U, Memon MS. Prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in
Pakistan; A systematic review. Pak J Med Sci. 2018; 34
Pakistan Journal of Ophthalmology, 2020, Vol. 36 (3): 282-286
285