CORRELATION BETWEEN PREOPERATIVE MACULAR THICKNESS AND POSTOPERATIVE VISUAL PROGNOSIS IN PATIENTS WITH DIABETIC
1Department of Ophthalmology, Jiaozhou Central Hospital of Qingdao, Shandong, China;
Abstract:
To analyze the association between preoperative macular thickness (MT) and the visual prognosis after surgery in patients with diabetic cataract (DC), and to provide some references for preoperative evaluation and surgery selection.
Approach:
From January 2024 to September 2025, a retrospective analysis was conducted on 80 DC patients (80 eyes) who underwent phacoemulsification concomitant with IOL implantation at Jiaozhou Central Hospital of Qingdao. All patients underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) examination preoperatively to observe the CMT and MT-3mm (the macular thickness in 3mm diameter area). Depending on CMT before surgery, the patients were classified into three groups. The normal group consisted of those with CMT less than 250 μm (n=27). The mild thickening group consisted of those with CMT greater than or equal to and less than 250 (n=32). Finally, the moderate/severe thickening group consisted of those with CMT greater than or equal to 300 μm (n=21). We took note of the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA, converted to logMAR) before surgery, then at 1 month and 3 months after. Statistical methods were used to analyze the correlation between preoperative MT and postoperative BCVA, and to explore the influencing factors of postoperative visual prognosis.
Results:
There was no statistically significant difference in preoperative BCVA (P > 0.05) between the three groups. According to the results obtained, at the time point of 1 month and 3 months after the operation, the normal group had significantly better BCVA than the group with mild thickening and moderate-severe thickening group (P < 0.05), and that the group with mild thickening had better BCVA than the moderate-severe thickening group (P < 0.05). According to the Pearson correlation analysis, preoperative CMT and MT-3mm positively correlated with postoperative 1-month and 3-month logMAR BCVA (r=0.623, 0.589, 0.651, 0.617; all P < 0.001). The analysis of multivariate linear regression revealed that CMT prior to the surgery (β=0.412, P < 0.001) and duration of diabetes (β=0.235, P=0.021) were influential postoperative 3-month BCVA factors.
Conclusion:
Macular thickness before surgery is closely related to visual prognosis after surgery in DC patients. Patients with thicker preoperative macular thickness had worse visual recovery post-operatively. Preoperative OCT measurement of macular thickness can be regarded as an important reference for evaluating its visual prognosis after surgery.
