J Korean Ophthalmol Soc.  2001 Oct;42(10):1401-1407.

Quantitative Analysis of Diabetic Macular Edema after Laser Photocoagulation

• Kim HC
• Boo HD
• Youn SH

Abstract

PURPOSE: Diabetic macular edema is one of major causes leading to visual loss and it is difficult to be quantified. We investigated a volumetric quantification of retinal thickness change before and after focal laser photocoagulation with Heidelberg Retina Tomograph (HRT).
METHODS
Ten patients who were diagnosed as diabetic retinopathy with clinically significant macular edema (CSME) in only one eye and treated with focal laser photocoagulation were studied. The opposite eyes which had no CSME were studied as control group. In the eyes which had CSME, the volume above reference plane (VARP) bounded by three consecutive circle centered at the fovea (diameter 1, 2, and 3 mm) were measured. The retinal thickness of control group was also measured with the same method. We performed focal laser photocoagulation for the eyes which had CSME and measured VARP at 1, 2, and 3 months after laser treatment.
RESULTS
Three months after laser treatment, the VARP of treated eyes measured in each diameter was significantly decreased, however, there was no significant difference in control group. There was no significant difference in visual acuity change between before and 3 months after laser treatment.
CONCLUSION
From the above results, we concluded that HRT could be used to quantify the change of diabetic macular edema before and after laser treatment.

Keyword

Diabetic macular edema; Heidelberg Retina Tomograph (HRT); Focal laser photocoagula-tion; Visual acuity, VARP (volume above reference plane)

MeSH Terms

Diabetic Retinopathy
Humans
Light Coagulation*
Macular Edema*
Retina
Retinaldehyde
Visual Acuity
Retinaldehyde