Measurement of foveal thickness by optical coherence tomography in adult haemodialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy

Abstract

Background: Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of hemodialysis (HD) on macular edema in diabetic patients.

Objective: To study the effects of a HD session on foveal thickness by optical coherence tomography (OCT) in adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with chronic renal failure (CRF) secondary to stage 5 diabetic nephropathy in HD.

Patients and methods: We studied 25 eyes of 14 patients who underwent analytical studies and pre-HD and post-HD OCT.

Results: As a group, the foveal thickness did not change after one session of HD in the 25 eyes studied (245.28 ± 52.21 μ versus 240.40 ± 40.25 μ) (p = 0.428) (2% reduction) or correlated with any clinical or laboratory parameters analyzed.When comparing the subgroup of 13 eyes in which the foveal thickness did not change or decreased compared to the subgroup of 12 eyes in which the foveal thickness increased we found that in the first subgroup the bath temperature was significantly higher (37.00 ± 0.00 versus 36.29 ° C, p = 0.008) and the conductivity was significantly lower (14.00 ± 0.00 versus 14.29 ± 0.10 mS / cm, p = 0.030).

Conclusion: HD may modify the foveal retinal thickness as a function of changing parameters such as bath temperature and conductivity.