Diabetic retinopathy major cause of blindness

Diabetic retinopathy is emerging as a major cause for blindness among working-age people in India, said ophthalmologists on occasion of World Sight Day.
"Diabetic retinopathy is a disorder of the blood vessels in the retina of patients with diabetes mellitus. At the early stage, tiny blood spots or fatty deposits appear on the retina. Proliferative retinopathy develops from background retinuoathy and is responsible for most of the visual loss in diabetes.
"In this condition, new blood vessels grow on the surface of the retina and optic nerve. These immature blood vessels tend to rupture and bleed into the cavity of the eye, Scra tissue can also form from the ruptured blood vessels and can contract and pull on the retina causing retinal detachment and vision loss," said Dr Atul Kumar, Professor of Ophthalmology at AIIMS.

This increasing threat has prompted Dr RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS to undertake a survey in association with Sightsavers, an UK based international agency to assess the magnitude of the problem in the national capital.
"Through campaigns we ask only diabetes people to come to our camps and get tested to check if they have got diabetic retinopathy. Till now we have examined 16,000 people residing in 35000 slums out of which 12 per cent were found to be suffering from diabetic retinopathy. These patients were brought to AIIMS and were provided free treatment," said Praveen Vashist, additional professor, community ophthalmology at AIIMS.

Apart from that AIIMS in collaboration with Regional Institute of Ophthalmology in Guwahati and Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH) Hyderabad and National Physical Laboratory is looking into the effects of environment and indoor smoke on occular health.

The study is being conducted in Delhi-NCR, North-east and Coastal areas and the preliminary results state that environmental pollution leads to dry eyes and allergies and that UV rays are related to cataract and pterygium (surfer's eye), a corneal growth that affects people who spend a lot of time outdoors, said Dr Radhika Tandon, Professor at Dr RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences

AIIMS is also conducting a National Blindness Survey to assess the causes of blindness in our country and the survey is being conducted in 30 districts spread in 24 states.
Dr Kumar also said that the Dr RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences is getting 30-40 patients of ocular trauma, those who suffer injuries because of ball or any blunt object and thus stressed on taking enough precautions to prevent such injuries.