Prediction of Progression of Retinal Ischemia in Diabetes

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a major public health problem with significant socioeconomic implications due to its increased prevalence. Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most frequent complication in DM patients and remains the leading cause of legal blindness in working-age populations (Yau et al., 2012). Differentiating patients with higher vs low risk of progression to vision-threatening complications is of paramount importance for an efficient managing of the disease to prevent vision disability. PREDICTION is a longitudinal prospective clinical study in DMT2 patients with a higher risk of progression to explore possible imaging, functional and systemic biomarkers of progression, using non-invasive methods, commonly applied in the clinical practice. Investigating the retinal vascular network (vessel density metrics with Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography) will allow a better understanding of the evolution of capillary closure and ischemia, two main risk factors for DR worsening.