Corneal autofluorescence in presence of diabetic retinopathy

Recently corneal autofluorescence has been proposed as an ocular diagnostic tool for diabetic retinopathy. The method is based on the sensible increase of the natural fluorescence of corneal tissue within specific wavelength in presence of early stage of diabetic retinopathy. The main advantages of this method are that the corneal autofluorescence has been demonstrated to be not age-related and that the cornea is readily accessible to be investigated. In this study 47 insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and 51 non-insulin- dependent diabetes mellitus patients aged 20 - 90 years have been considered. Patients were selected from the Eye Clinic of S. Raffaele Hospital. The modified Airlie House classification was used to grade the diabetic retinopathy. Corneal autofluorescence has been measured by using both a specifically designed instrument and the Fluorotron Master. Corneal autofluorescence mean value for each diabetic retinopathy measured by using both the instruments correlated with the retinopathy grade