Question

(A recommended  300 words).What is Diabetic Retinopathy You can include common symptoms, etiology, treatment options, and any other informative information that you would like to share about your choice.

Answer 1

DIABETIC RETINOPATHY

# DEFINITION - It is a retinal disease which eventually causes loss of vision secondarily to diabetes mellitus

# ETIOLOGY - Long standing uncontrolled diabetes mellitus.

# SYMPTOMS - usually almost all patients are asymptomatic with long standing diabetes mellitus. In late stage it presents as diminish vision.

# SIGNS - signs are visualised on FUNDUS EXAMINATION which is an investigation using which a retina can be visualised.

According to signs this disease in devided into TWO STAGES

1) NON-PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY - It is again subdivided into MILD, MODERATE and SEVERE cases

2) PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY

Now we will discuss each stage separately,

MILD NON-PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY - this is very initial stage and has no symptoms and usually has GOOD vision. The only way to detect NPDR is by fundus examination fundus findings are MICRO-ANEURYSM(which are actually microscopic blood-filled bulges in the artery ), SOFT AND HARD EXUDATES and RETINAL HEMORRHAGE

MODERATE NON-PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY - are also asymptomatic and SHOWS feature like EXTENSIVE MICRO-ANEURYS and RETINAL HEMORRHAGE with INTRA-RETINAL MICROVASCULAR ABNORMALITIES

SEVERE NON-PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY - same as moderate but all fundoscopic findings are more extensive in nature

PROLIFERATIVE DIABETIC RETINOPATHY - patient has symptoms of BLUR VISION and about signs it has all the above festures discussed innon-proliferative diabetic retinopathy with that it has additional features like NEOVASCULARIZATION OF DISC SND RETINA and VJTREOUS HAEMORRHAGE

# TREATMENT - Treatment part is devided into two parts.

1) Trestment of diabetes mellitus with oral medication or insulin as required.

2) Treatment of retinal damage - it can be done by 3 ways, These three treatments are laser surgery, injection of corticosteroids or anti-VEGF agents into the eye.