Prognosis for vision and fundus changes in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetic retinopathy has become one of the major causes of adult blindness in many countries (Winter, I960; Vedel-Jensen, I962; Caird and Garrett, I963; Lee, McMeel, Schepens, and Field, I966; Caird, Burditt, and Draper, I968; Caird, Pirie, and Ramsell, I969; Lindstedt, I969). Proliferative retinopathy is the severest form of the diabetic fundus disease, and although it occurs in only a small percentage of the patients in a nonselected diabetic population, proliferative retinopathy is particularly feared, as it is often followed by rapid loss of vision. Drastic therapeutic measures, such as photocoagulation, hypophysectomy, and adrenalectomy, have been applied in an attempt to stop the progression of this late diabetic manifestation. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the development of the fundus changes and to give an impression of the visual prognosis in diabetics with proliferative retinopathy.