Diabetics may have inflated IOP readings

Researchers determined that the central corneal thickness was higher in diabetic patients than in patients without diabetes. This increased thickness may cause intraocular pressure (IOP) measurements to be inflated. One hundred diabetic patients were studied and the study participants were split into three subsets: 29 patients had no diabetic retinopathy, 48 patients had mild to moderate non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy and 23 patients had proliferative diabetic retinopathy. In addition, there was a control group of 145 non-diabetic subjects. The mean IOP was 15.1 in the study group and 11.6 in the control group. The control group had a mean central corneal thickness of 538 while the study group had a mean central corneal thickness was 564. The mean central corneal thickness of each of the subsets was as follows: proliferative diabetic retinopathy: 582; non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy: 558; no retinopathy: 565.*