Patients with Diabetic Eye Disease using a Potentially Therapeutic Mask. Do Sufficient Patients Wear the Mask and For How Long?

The retina has one of the highest oxygen consumptions of any tissue in the body [1] and this is mainly due to the photoreceptors and the rods in particular [2]. The rod consumption of oxygen is at its greatest when the retina is dark-adapted [3] and the rods generate dark current. At such time the choroid, the main vascular supply to the photoreceptors, is at its most sluggish and so greater demand is needed from the retinal circulation of the inner retina [4,5]. In diabetic retinopathy, the inner retinal circulation is compromised so the enhanced oxygen requirement of the dark-adapted rods is likely to be a major vascular stress inducer, contributing to the retinal pathology and compromised retinal tissue [6].