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Marmara Üniv. Hastanesi Göz Hast. ABD. Color doppler imaging is a new non-invasive technique that enables measuring blood flow velocity in retrobulbar orbital vessels for the evaluation of vascular pathologies. The goal of this study is to evaluate changes in ocular circulation that may be associated with diabetes with or without retinopathy.
92 eyes of 49 diabetic patients and 28 eyes of 14 healthy individuals were studied prospectively at Marmara University Hospital Ophthalmology clinic. Diabetic patients were divided into four groups as the ones without retinopathy, background, preproliferative and proliferative retinopathy. The central retinal arteries (CRA), ophthalmic arteries (OA), two short posterior ciliary arteries (PCA) of all patients were examined and systolic, diastolic mean velocities were measured and resistivity inderes were calculated for each vessel.
The differences between the control and the diabetic groups were prominent in CRA flow rates. The decrease in diabetics were directly propotional to the intensity of the retinopathy. No statistically significant differences could be detected when OA and PCA flow rates were compared. Resistivity indexes in diabetic groups were found to be higher in three arteries compared to the control group. In our study the decrease in CRA flow rates in proliferative diabetic retinopathy group were higher than the background and preproliferative groups. So the CRA flow rates were ralated to the intensity of the retinopathy. The role of color doppler imaging for the evaluation of diabetic patients whose fundi can not be visualised has to be evaluated. The decrease in CRA flow rates in diabetics without retinopathy is a valuable objective finding for the early evaluation of retinopathy development risk. Keywords : Diabetic retinopathy, orbital blood flow, photocoagulation