Type 2 diabetes mellitus: lens densitometric changes

Abstract

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is responsible for one fifth of all cataracts, the scheimpflug rotary chamber system allows to study in depth the first changes in the density of these lenses, establishing densitometric values in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, with good visual acuity without diabetic retinopathy, and compare these values with a control group without the disease, from June 2017 to March 2018. Methods: a comparative, exploratory and prospective study was carried out, the population and sample was composed of patients who attended the ophthalmological consultation of the Domingo Luciani Hospital. Results: all densitometric values were higher in diabetic patients than in normal patients. The greatest difference occurs in the nucleus values, followed by the anterior capsule approaching the statistical significance (p = 0.02) and (p = 0.01) respectively. 75% of diabetic patients presented significant changes in densitometry of the anterior capsule and 40% in the nucleus. Conclusions: the anterior capsule in diabetic patients with younger age (50 to 60 years) presented higher values of densitometry compared to non-diabetics. In the groups of 61 to 70 and 71 to 80 the values were lower; We conclude that the early changes in the anterior capsule are due to diabetes. As for the nucleus, a progressive increase in density was observed in the control group as the age increased, but when the diabetes factor was added, the values increased markedly, thus accentuating the evolution of the senile cataract. Diabetes precociously alters the density of the anterior capsule and nucleus.