A bstract Aim: This prospective study aimed to assess the influence of phacoemulsification and vitrectomy surgery on the corneal endothelial cells. Material and methods: The comparison was done on the 33 eyes of diabetic patients undergoing a vitrectomy procedure and 21 eyes undergoing cataract surgery in the diabetic group, with 21 control nondiabetic patients. Corneal endothelial cell morphology was compared by measuring cell density, hexagonality, coefficient of variation, and average cell area in the two populations at 4 and 8 weeks post-surgery to the preoperative value on specular microscopy. Results: There was a drop in drop in cell density in both groups postoperatively—a mean drop of 8.8% ± 3.6% in the nondiabetic group versus 14.7% ± 3.8% in the diabetic group of cataract and 8.0% ± 2.3% at 4 weeks postoperative. Hence, the difference in the two groups was statistically significant, and the cell loss was higher in the diabetic subset after intraocular surgery. Conclusion: Therefore, it behooves us to treat diabetic corneas at risk and take added precautions intraoperatively to use dispersive viscoelastics and monitor the phaco energy during the surgery routine, specular microscopy preoperatively in diabetics.
Dudani et al. (2024) studied this question.