Relationship between choroidal structure and duration of diabetes

• Published in: Graefe's archive for clinical and experimental ophthalmology Vol. 257; no. 6; pp. 1133 - 1140
• Main Authors: Endo, Hiroaki, Kase, Satoru, Ito, Yuki, Takahashi, Mitsuo, Yokoi, Masahiko, Katsuta, Satoshi, Sonoda, Shozo, Sakamoto, Taiji, Ishida, Susumu, Kase, Manabu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-06-2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetic retinopathy; Health risk assessment; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Ophthalmology; Retinal Disorders; Retinopathy; Stroma; Diabetic retinopathy; Diabetes duration; Binarization; Choroidal vasculature; Diabetes mellitus
• ISSN: 0721-832X; 1435-702X
• DOI: 10.1007/s00417-019-04295-1

Background
The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the choroidal structure of diabetic patients without diabetic retinopathy (DR) and duration of diabetes.
Methods
This study is a retrospective observational study in diabetic patients without DR. Eyes with diabetes mellitus (DM) (
n
 = 105) were divided into two groups based on the duration: long duration group (over 10 years,
n
 = 31) and short duration group (less than 10 years,
n
 = 74). One hundred seventeen eyes of non-diabetic patients were used as control group. All patients underwent enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography, and the choroidal structure was analyzed using a binarization method.
Results
There was no significant difference in areas of total choroid and lumina/stroma or central choroidal thickness (CCT) between control and DM groups. In contrast, lumina/total choroidal (L/C) ratio was significantly lower in diabetic eyes than in control eyes (
P
 = 0.02). Although there was no significant difference in the areas or CCT between short and long duration groups, L/C ratio was significantly lower in the long duration group than in the short duration group (
P
 = 0.03).
Conclusions
The current study suggests that choroidal vasculature is involved in the diabetic eyes and that the choroidal structure has changed with duration of diabetes. Our study points out that L/C ratio is a new potential biomarker in monitoring choroidal vascular disorders in diabetic eyes without DR.