Twenty years with type 2 diabetes: ocular and associated complications

To evaluate the incidence of ocular and renal complications in known patients of diabetes mellitus (DM) with more than 20 years of disease duration. : A total of 50 patients diagnosed with Type 2 DM with disease duration of more than 20 years underwent ophthalmic evaluation and as well for renal status and biochemical analysis. With a disease duration between 20 to 31 years, 84% (42/50) patients had a disease duration from 20 years to 25 years. The distribution of various stages of diabetic retinopathy (DR) showed that 1/5 of the study group had no DR. Only 10% had PDR. This data suggests that after 20 years of disease duration the number of subjects with no DR were double that of the severe stage of retinopathy which is PDR. In this study there were only 8/50 patients with CKD (16%). With increasing age there is surprisingly lesser incidence of complications of DM in this study group.