Frequency of Eye Changes in Patients of Chronic Kidney Disease

Background: One important and often ignored aspect in treatment of patients of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is screening for eye disorders. There is a need for continuous monitoring and examination, with cooperation from an ophthalmologist, of all dialysis patients with increased risk of vision loss like patients with coexisting diabetes and hypertension. It is not very common to find vision disorders or other anatomical defects of eye which can be directly attributed to kidney diseases. In general, eye disease is found as incidental finding during screening of patients with kidney diseases. Aim: To evaluate the frequency of eye changes in patients of chronic kidney disease. Methods: It was a Cross-sectional descriptive study performed in Department of Medicine and Nephrology Indoor, Fatima Memorial Hospital Lahore. The total duration was 6 months after approval of the project i.e. from 26-12-2019 to 25-06-2020. All patients admitted in the hospital under department of Medicine or Nephrology from 13 to 70 years of age diagnosed as a case of Chronic Kidney Disease as per the Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) were recruited for the study. Results: Total cases were 213, 44(20.65%) were from the age group of 13-40, 169(79.35%) were in 41-70 years age group, mean±Standard deviation(SD)was 47.82±8.55years, 114(53.52%) male, 99(46.48%) females, 129(60.56%) had diabetes mellitus, 141(66.19%) had hypertension, mean duration of disease was calculated as 14.23±4.99 months, 41(19.24%) retinal disorder, 79(37.08%) had cataract while 93(43.66%) had no eye disorder, out of 41 cases of retinal disorders, 17(41.46%) had hypertensive retinopathy while 24(58.53%) had diabetic retinopathy. Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of cataract and retinal disorders in chronic kidney disease patients. However our study was limited to single center, more extensive studies with a bigger sample size are needed to validate our results. Keywords: Chronic kidney disease, Eye disorders, Retinal disorders, Cataract, End stage renal diseases