Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Impact of the COVID-19 on the Control of Diabetic Patients in Diabetic Retinopathy and its Screening

Pedro Romero-Aroca
* ORCID logo ,
Marc Baget-Bernaldiz
,
Ramon Sagarra
,
Esther Hervas
,
Reyes Blasco
,
Julia Molina
ORCID logo ,
Empar F. Moreno
,
Egugeni Garcia-Curto
Version 1 : Received: 13 November 2022 / Approved: 15 November 2022 / Online: 15 November 2022 (04:40:58 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Romero-Aroca, P.; Baget-Bernaldiz, M.; Sagarra, R.; Hervás, E.; Blasco, R.; Molina, J.; Moreno, E.F.; Garcia-Curto, E. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Metabolic Control of Diabetic Patients in Diabetic Retinopathy and Its Screening. J. Clin. Med. 2022, 11, 7121. Romero-Aroca, P.; Baget-Bernaldiz, M.; Sagarra, R.; Hervás, E.; Blasco, R.; Molina, J.; Moreno, E.F.; Garcia-Curto, E. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Metabolic Control of Diabetic Patients in Diabetic Retinopathy and Its Screening. J. Clin. Med. 2022, 11, 7121.

Abstract

(1) Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes mellitus (DM) and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected screening programmes. The aim of present study was to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the screening of diabetes patients in our Health Care Area (HCA); (2) Methods: A retrospective study of patients with DM who had attended the DR screening programme between January 2015 and June 2022. We studied attendance, DM metabolic control and DR incidence. (3) Results: Screening for DR decreased in the first months of the pandemic. Incidence of mild and moderate DR remained stable throughout the study, and we observed a little increase in severe-DR, proliferative-DR and neovascular glaucoma, during 2021 and 2022. (4) Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a reduction in the number of patients screened for DM, although its effect on DR seems limited, with a similar number of patients with DR throughout 2015 to 2022, despite the number of patients with severe-DR and proliferative-DR increased in 2021 and 2022.

Keywords

telemedicine; diabetic retinopathy; diabetic macular edema; epidemiology; COVID-19

Subject

Medicine and Pharmacology, Ophthalmology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Download PDF Download Supplementary

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0
Metrics 0
Get PDF Supplementary Files Cite Share 0
Bookmark BibSonomy Mendeley Reddit Delicious
×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.