Optical coherence tomography findings in diabetic retinopathy

Ophthalmoscopy, fundus photography and fluorescein angiography are the common tools to diagnose diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. However, there is an increasing demand for high-resolution imaging of ocular tissues to improve the diagnosis and management of diabetic retinopathy. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides important additional information about the retina. It produces reliable, reproducible and objective retinal images especially in diabetic macular edema and provides information about vitreoretinal relationships that can clearly only be detected with OCT. It enhances the ability to exactly diagnose diabetic macular edema, epiretinal membranes, vitreomacular or vitroretinal traction. OCT also brings new insights into morphological changes of the retina in diabetic retinopathy. It demonstrates that macular edema is a complex clinical entity with various morphology. With the OCT, structural changes and quantitative assessment of macular edema have become feasible as determined with retinal thickness and volume. OCT is more sensitive to small changes in retinal thickness than slit-lamp biomicroscopy.