Glaucoma and Diabetic Retinopathy in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2. Review.

<p>Glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy (DR) are the most frequent reasons of visual loss and disability. Combination of glaucoma and DR causes worse prognosis. Similarity of pathogenetic mechanisms of DR and glaucoma allows consideration of more frequent development of primary open-angle glaucoma among patients suffering diabetes mellitus. To reveal these diseases at the earliest stages is one of the most difficult ophthalmological problems. The contemporary methods of DR and glaucoma diagnostics are optical coherence tomography and Heidelberg retina tomography. They give an opportunity to estimate the dynamics of pathological process and the efficiency of surgical and pharmacological treatment. Optical scanning of an optic disk and peripapillary retina gives a chance to estimate up to 20 morphometric parameters. Determination of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in peripapillary zone reflects a condition of nerve fibers and extent of their defeat. It is shown that in glaucoma there is a thinning of RNFL and a neuroretinal rim. In early diagnostics of glaucoma the parameters of optic disk characterizing neuroretinal rim are considered the most informative. OCT considerably expands diagnostic research possibilities of structural and morphological retinal changes in a <br />macular zone in patients with DR and DME. Measurement of retinal thickness in macular area is a key point in diagnostics and tactics of treatment. The standard method of DR therapy is retinal laser coagulation. However, laser photocoagulation as monotherapy is not effective enough in patients with diffuse and cystoid macular edema. It is more reasonable to use retinal laser photocoagulation in combination with antiangiogenic therapy for treatment of the diabetic macular edema (DME) and DR. The special emphasis is put on development of treatment algorithm of combination of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Therapy of neovascular glaucoma in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 is a complex problem. Such patients traditionally get panretinal laser photocoagulation. Recently anti-VEGF-agents are used as additional therapy of neovascular glaucoma. However, nowadays the influence of antiangiogenic treatment on dynamics of clinical and morphological parameters in patients with the combined pathology is insufficiently investigated.