The ocular complications of diabetes comprise a group of pathological conditions that can occur in people with diabetes by this serious pathology. In particular, it is the diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular oedemabut cataracts and glaucoma may also be included.
In order to better inform patients about these diseases, the importance of diagnosis and treatment regimes, pharmacists familiar with advances in diabetic screening can play an important role and work closely with general practitioners and ophthalmologists. Of the diabetes-related ocular complications, diabetic retinopathy is the most important and frequent. It is a multifactorial disease that has among its causes alterations in the blood vessels of the retina, resulting from the poor control of glucose metabolism typical of diabetic disease. There are basically two forms of diabetic retinopathy: the non-proliferative form and the proliferative form, which is the most severe.
Unless diagnosed and treated early, advanced diabetic retinopathy can lead to severe vision loss or even blindness. In fact, it is the most frequent cause of blindness in adults and has a very serious impact on patients' quality of life.
Future projections indicate that the incidence of this disease will increase and become an increasingly important public health problem, also in connection with an ageing population and rising rates of prevalence of diabetes on a global scale.
Loss of sight caused by diabetic retinopathy can be prevented if the disease is diagnosed early and treated early. Various studies have shown that early diagnosis results, among other things, in significantly lower costs in terms of health care, firstly because early diagnosis enables the appropriate treatment to be taken immediately, but also because it prevents the disease from progressing to even more serious complications such as diabetic macular oedema.
However, the lack of awareness among diabetes patients of the risk factors that favour the onset of diabetic retinopathy is a cause for concern: there is indeed a great need to improve levels of education and increase awareness among patients with diabetes of the microvascular complications associated with poor blood glucose control.
The involvement of pharmacists, in this sense, can be crucial in improving levels of health education of the population, in the implementation of prevention, screening and early diagnosis programmes for chronic diseases or conditions and in the development of new approaches to improve access to quality healthcare.
The role of the pharmacist can be central in developing and coordinating education programmes on the benefits of prevention and early diagnosis, but also in facilitating diabetic patients' access to specific examinations and, in general, in helping to improve their health and quality of life.
Finally, pharmacists can contribute significantly to preventing sight loss by facilitating eye examinations for patients at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. Collaboration between pharmacists and ophthalmologists is, therefore, an important possibility for reducing the incidence of diabetes-related vision loss and the potentially serious visual problems associated with poor glycaemic control.
In conclusion, community pharmacy and pharmacists are an excellent resource for educating citizens about diabetes, diabetic retinopathy and other diabetes-related comorbidities and eye diseases. Collaboration with pharmacists can also help identify patients most at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy or those with undiagnosed disease and refer them to their ophthalmologists for the most effective treatment.
Bibliography:
Dr. Carmelo Chines
Direttore responsabile
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