Diabetes Battle: More Ophthalmologists Needed
Reported March 13, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Medical experts are banding together to encourage ophthalmologists to join other clinicians in the battle against diabetes.
In the last decade alone, the prevalence of diabetes has doubled and the resulting increases in diabetes-related eye disease pose a new challenge to eye specialists, according to an editorial in the current issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.
“By 2050, the number of Americans with diabetic retinopathy [affecting blood vessels in the retina] is projected to triple from 5.5 million to 16 million, and the number of those with vision-threatening retinopathy will increase from 1.2 million to 3.4 million,” write Thomas W. Gardner, M.D., M.S., and Robert A. Gabbay, M.D., Ph.D., of Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pa.
To effectively treat these conditions, ophthalmologists must go beyond surgically treating late-stage eye disease and work with other clinicians to help patients control their diabetes before eye complications worsen, Dr. Gardner and Dr. Gabbay note.
SOURCE: Archives of Ophthalmology, March 2009