Abstract
Purpose: :
To analyse the evolution of serous retinal detachments (SRD) associated with diabetic macular edema (DME) using optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Methods: :
64 eyes of 40 diabetic patients who have presented with DME associated with SRD were studied retrospectively. The mean age of the patients was 56 years. SRD was bilateral in 24 patients and unilateral in 16. All patients had had repeated OCT3 examinations. When SRD was first diagnosed, foveolar thickness and the height of the SRD were measured. The OCT macular profiles obtained during the follow–up were retrospectively and qualitatively analysed.
Results: :
Mean follow–up was 16 months (+/–20.4). DME was focal in 10 eyes (15.62%), diffuse in 17 (26.56%) and both diffuse and focal in 37(57.81%). When SRD was first diagnosed, mean visual acuity (0.3+/–0.2) correlated with average SRD height (206 µm +/–140)(p=0.0097). Mean foveolar retinal thickness was 352.6 µm (+/–138.5) and did not correlated with SRD height. In 9 eyes (14.1%), SRD appeared before DME, in the 55 other eyes (85.9%) SRD and DME were both present at the first examination. During the follow–up, SRD regressed before DME in 24 eyes (37.5%), after DME in 13 (20.3%) and both SRD and DME remained present in 27 (42.2%).
Conclusions: :
In this study, SRD was associated with combined diffuse and focal DME in most of the eyes. SRD height does not correlate with retinal thickening. The latter may appear before DME and disappear before or after DME disappearance. Consequently, SRD does not seem to be related, either to the severity of the DME or to its resorption.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: natural history • diabetes • macula/fovea