Prediction of a reliable method for the estimation of central corneal thickness in diabetic patients with and without diabetic retinopathy

ABSTRACT

Background

This study aimed to analyze the central corneal thickness (CCT) in diabetic patients with and without diabetic retinopathy (DR) by investigating the impacts of other CCT factors such as hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels, diabetes mellitus (DM) duration, and the DR stages. The study also compared the results of two measuring devices – anterior segment-optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) and ultrasound pachymetry (UP). However, the existing research possesses bias in revealing the precise measurement of CCT.

Research design and methods

The study enrolled 300 participants who were segregated into three equal groups: group A with DR, group B without DR, and the control group. The study tested the following formulated hypothesis, like the correlation between the age, duration, and HbA1c level of diabetic patients with DR and without DR. The effectiveness of the AS-OCT and UP was assessed through statistical analysis.

Results

The experiment revealed a considerable statistical difference in the formulated hypothesis and observed that AS-OCT had higher efficacy than UP in estimating CCT in all the groups.

Conclusions

The study recommends the prompt utilization of devices such as AS-OCT to precisely predict CCT. This could greatly benefit DM patients with retinopathy conditions for better decision-making and reliable measures during glaucoma surgery.

KEYWORDS:

• AS-OCT
• central corneal thickness
• diabetes mellitus
• diabetic retinopathy
• ultrasound pachymetry

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all our colleagues for providing administrative, technical, referential, and material support.

Declaration of interests

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Study concept and design (AS Lokaj, G Kaçaniku, K Spahiu, F Semiz); data collection (AS Lokaj); analysis and interpretation of data (AS Lokaj); writing the manuscript (AS Lokaj, G Kaçaniku); critical revision of manuscript (G Kaçaniku, AS Lokaj, K Spahiu, F Semiz); administrative, technical, or material support (AS Lokaj); and supervision (G Kaçaniku, AS Lokaj, K Spahiu, F Semiz). All named authors state that they meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship for this article, take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, and have given their approval for this version to be published.

Ethical approval

Approval was obtained from the National Research Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Health, Kosovo. Our study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of 1964 and its later amendments. All patients were aware of the collection of their data for this study and signed a consent form at the time of enrollment.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the first author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.