European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a group of metabolic diseases characterised by hyperglycemia resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Millions of people all over the world are affected by Diabetes Mellitus. Diabetic retinopathy, neovascular glaucoma, cataract, refractory deviations, ptosis, palsy of the oculomotor nerve, and hordeolosis are typical ocular complications in diabetic patients. Recently, problems involving the ocular surface, dryness, in particular, have been reported in diabetic patients. These patients suffer from many corneal complications like superficial punctate keratopathy, corneal ulceration, and persistent epithelial defects. Materials and Methods: A hospital-based study was conducted on 200 patients attending the Department of Ophthalmology, Subbaiah Institute of Medical Sciences Shivamogga from September 2022 to August 2023. A sample of 100 patients with type II diabetes and 100 patients matched controls were studied. First, 100 diabetic and 100 control patients were selected from the patients visiting ophthalmology. Then informed consent, detailed history of each patient were obtained regarding the age, gender, occupation, presenting symptoms, progression, duration of symptoms and associated conditions. Results: The mean age of the control group was 54.54±9.99 years, in diabetics without retinopathy were 53.50± 10.77 years and in diabetics with retinopathy was 56.99 ± 8.40 years. The mean duration of diabetes in diabetics without DR was 3.61 ± 3.16 years, while the duration of diabetes in diabetics with DR was 8.69 ± 5.13 years. The mean values of HbA1c in diabetics with and without DR were 8.17 ± 1.87% and 10.31 ± 2.58% respectively. There was a significant association between the HbA1c levels and the retinopathy in diabetics (p-value < 0.0001). Conclusion: Patients with type II diabetes have a higher prevalence of dry eye than their age-matched controls in our study. Evaluation of diabetic patients using the OSDI questionnaire can help identify dry eye in early stages. A significant association was noted between dry eye disease and the duration of diabetes. A statistically significant correlation was found between HbA1c values and dry eye status in patients with diabetes.