• Leandro Cabral Zacharias, Breno M S Azevedo, Rafael B de Araujo, Marina R Ciongoli, Marcelo Hatanaka, Rony C Preti, and Mario Luiz Ribeiro Monteiro.
• Divisao de Oftalmologia, Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, SP, BR.
• Clinics (Sao Paulo). 2019 Jan 1; 74: e1163.

ObjectivesTo determine the effect of panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) on the peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) in nonglaucomatous patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).MethodsThis is a prospective, single center, observational study. Thirty-eight eyes of 26 diabetic patients underwent PRP for proliferative diabetic retinopathy. Peripapillary RNFL thickness was measured using scanning laser polarimetry (SLP) with variable corneal compensation (GDx VCC; by Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) (Heidelberg Spectralis, Carlsbad, USA) at baseline and 12 months after PRP was performed.ResultsThirty-eight eyes of 26 patients (15 female) with a mean age of 53.7 years (range 26 to 74 years) were recruited. No significant difference was found among all RNFL thickness parameters tested by GDx VCC software (p=0.952, 0.464 and 0.541 for temporal-superior-nasal-inferior-temporal (TSNIT) average, superior average, inferior average, respectively). The nerve fiber indicator (NFI) had a nonsignificant increase (p=0.354). The OCT results showed that the average RNFL thickness (360° measurement) decreased nonsignificantly from 97.2 mm to 96.0 mm at 1 year post-PRP (p=0.469). There was no significant difference when separately analyzing all the peripapillary sectors (nasal superior, temporal superior, temporal, temporal inferior, nasal inferior and nasal thickness).ConclusionOur results suggest that PRP, as performed in our study, does not cause significant changes in peripapillary RNFL in diabetic PDR patients after one year of follow-up.

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