Ocular Complications of Diabetes

THERE is no doubt that the retinal changes which may occur in diabetic patients are by far the most important ocular complication of the disease. It is now generally recognized that there is a type of retinopathy peculiar to diabetics, which is quite distinct from that occurring as a result of hypertension or arteriosclerosis. Ballantyne and Loewenstein (1943), reviewing a large series of diabetic patients, found that 50 per cent. of those with retinal changes had normal blood pressure and that many showed no arteriosclerotic changes in the retinal vessels. Wagener (1945), who at one time (Wagener and Wilde, 1921) had expressed the view that the retinopathy of diabetes was essentially that of arteriosclerosis, stated that, as a result of 25 years' further clinical experience, he was quite definitely of the opinion that neither arteriosclerosis nor hypertension produced retinopathy of the type characteristic of diabetes.