Introduction: In the recent years, several papers have evaluated the changes in central corneal thickness (CCT) associated with diabetes mellitus (DM) with conflicting results.
Aims: To compare the CCT of subjects with DM with age and sex matched healthy subjects and to determine the correlation of CCT with duration of DM and severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR).
Methods: In this cross-sectional, observational study 124 subjects with DM and 65 age matched healthy controls were studied. CCT was measured by pulsair non- contact tonometer. According to retinopathy status based on the ETDRS subjects with diabetes were categorized as PDR (Gr III), NPDR (Gr II) and NO DR (Gr I). Nondiabetic healthy control subjects were categorized as Group IV.
Results: The mean CCT for the study group was 547.02±2.34 and for the control group was 504.6±3.14(p=0.02).Mean CCT in subjects with diabetes with duration >10 years was higher (557.71±19.44) as compared to those having it for less than 10 years (534.05±27.30) (p=0.178). Patients with PDR had higher mean CCT (572.13±17.50) compared to NPDR (553.78±8.80). Patients with DM but no DR had lesser mean CCT than NPDR thus implying positive correlation of CCT with severity of DR.
Conclusion: CCT is significantly greater in subjects with diabetes compared to healthy control. It is positively correlated with severity of DR and duration of DM.
A. Baidya: None. Q. Waheed: None. A. Sarkar: None.
