Visual acuity is reduced with increasing central retinal thickness, but also with higher age and female sex in diabetic macular oedema
Signe Krejberg Jeppesen, Toke BekAbstract
Introduction
The increasing number of patients with diabetes has increased the incidence of diabetic macular oedema (DME) with the accompanying risk of developing visual loss. The purpose of the present study was to describe the contributions of increased central retinal thickness (CRT) and other risk factors to the reduction in visual acuity in patients diagnosed with treatment‐requiring DME.
Methods
Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the better eye was correlated with CRT at the last examination before treatment of 582 patients with DME between 2011 and 2024. Multiple linear regression was used to evaluate the contributions of CRT, sex, age, diabetes duration, body mass index (BMI) and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) to the variation in BCVA.
Results
BCVA was significantly inversely correlated with CRT, with an average reduction of one ETDRS letter per 17.9 micrometres increase in CRT ( p < 0.001), and CRT could explain approximately 32% of the variation in BCVA. In a multivariate model, increased CRT, higher age and female sex contributed independently to a lower BCVA, whereas diabetes duration, BMI and MAP showed no significant contribution to the variation in BCVA. The inclusion of all the variables could explain approximately 41% of the variation in BCVA.
Conclusions
In DME, BCVA is on average reduced by 1 ETDRS letter for each 17.9 micrometres increase in CRT. However, BCVA in DME is also reduced by higher age and female sex.