Objective: To characterize diabetic maculopathy seen in the Philippines, specifically, the associated factors, the various lesions seen on fluorescein angiography, and the visual acuity associated with these lesions Design: Descriptive study - cross sectional Participants: 127 patients (254 eyes) with diabetic retinopathy based on the fluorescein angiography done at the Eye Referral Center in 1993 Results: 116 (91.34 percent) patients have maculopathy, majority of which is bilateral (84.25 percent). Age (p=0.675), sex (p=0.357), hypertension (p=0.742), duration of diabetes (p=0.778) and myopia (p=0.742) were not significantly associated with maculopathy. However, severity of retinopathy (p=0.001) was significantly associated with it. Fluorescein angiographic findings are macular staining (83.86 percent), perifoveal capillary dropout or macular ischemia (10.76 percent), and preretinal traction and membrane (5.38 percent). Microaneurysm (72.65 percent) is the most common lesion associated with macular staining, followed by capillary leakage (4.04 percent), cystoid macular edema (3.59 percent), perifoveal capillary dropout with microaneursym (2.24 percent), and capillary with microaneursym leakage (1.34 percent). Exudates are associated with microaneurysm, perifoveal capillary dropout or their combination. Vision was found to be marginally statistically different between the normal and maculopathy group (p=0.0505). The worst vision was seen in macular ischemia and preretinal traction and membrane with mean visual acuity of 0.18 and 0.25 respectively Conclusion: Severity of the retinopathy is the only variable significantly associated with maculopathy in this study. Good vision does not necessarily indicate a normal macula. Detailed examination and fluorescein angiography regardless of duration of diabetes should be done.
Human ; Middle Aged ; Adult ; ANGIOGRAPHY ; DIABETIC RETINOPATHY ; RETINA,DISEASES