Contemporary trends in diabetic retinopathy and its complications among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients visiting a tertiary care hospital in Lahore

Background and Objectives: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic or long-term disorder with comorbidities like hypertension nephropathy, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and retinopathy.Diabetic retinopathy is a serious complication of the retina and a cause of the long-term existing condition of diabetes mellitus.Diabetic retinopathy is a threatening condition of blindness.It contributes 2.6% and 1.9% of visual impairment globally by 2010 and is expected to increase over time.To find out the frequency of diabetic retinopathy among patients with known diabetes mellitus type-2.METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study of 09 months duration was carried out with 375 participants after the IRB approval.The sampling technique was a non-probability convenient sampling technique.Data was received on a self-structured questionnaire and analyzed by the software SPSS 26 and the results were presented in figures.RESULTS: A total of 375 participants including 164 (43.7%) males and 213 (56.13%) females were assessed with the mean age group of 53 with a standard deviation of 9.22.Co-morbid conditions like hypertension were noticed in 244 (65.1%), dyslipidemia in 155 (41.3%), obesity in 109 (29.1%), and Ischemic heart disease in 123 (32.8%) participants.A higher incidence was noted in participants with Diabetes Mellitus present for more than 5 years.Results also showed that 244 (65.1%) participants were on oral treatment.97 (25.9%) visited regularly to a general physician and 48 (12.8%) visited an ophthalmologist regularly.Diabetic retinopathy was noted in 321 (43%) participants in both eyes, Mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy was found in both eyes in 108 (28.8%) participants, moderate in 148 (39.4%) participants, and severe in 64 (8.2%) participants.Proliferative diabetic retinopathy was found in 105 (28%), while macular edema was found in 116 (30.85%) participants.CONCLUSION: Diabetic retinopathy is a global public health issue that leads to blindness with a marked prevalence.Awareness may resolve the condition for preventing and controlling blindness caused by diabetes mellitus.