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Diabetic retinopathy, a disease of the
small blood vessels that nourish the retina, is the most common eye
complication of diabetes mellitus, a disease in which glucose, or
sugar, is not properly used by the body, allowing high levels of sugar to
build up in the blood and urine.
More than 32,000 Americans are blind from diabetic retinopathy, and each year an estimated 300,000 diabetics are seriously at risk for blindness from this disease. |
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| Laser treatment has
proven highly effective in forestalling severe visual loss at certain
stages of the disease. Even lost vision can, in some instances, be
restored, at least partially, through a surgical procedure called vitrectomy, in which the semisolid, normally clear gel in the center of
the eye is removed. There are two types of diabetic retinopathy:
Doctors are still unclear about its specific pathological causes. There is, however, a consensus that diabetic retinopathy probably does not stem from a single retinal change. Rather, the disease may be triggered by a combination of biochemical, metabolic, and hematologic abnormalities. |
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