According to the latest data of the US Centers for Disease Control and prevention, there are about 24 million diabetes patients in the United States, and another 57 million people are classified as quasi diabetes patients because their blood sugar exceeds the standard. Developed by the Kellogg eye center of the University of Michigan, this instrument can capture images of the eyes, thereby detecting metabolic disorders and tissue damage that occurs before the early symptoms of diabetes are more obvious.
The instrument can take detailed photos of the eyes and analyze the metabolic tension of the retina by detecting the fluorescence density in the cells of eye tissues. Scientists point out that a high level of fundus autofluorescence is a harbinger of eye diseases.
Erna and Petit measured the fundus autofluorescence level in the retina of 21 diabetes patients and compared the results with the same index of healthy people of the same age. Analysis of the test results shows that the activity level of fundus autofluorescence in patients with diabetes is much higher than that in healthy people, regardless of the severity of diabetes.
Petti pointed out that when patients with early-stage diabetes can’t find their symptoms through clinical tests, hyperglycemia has begun to lead to cell death in tissues, and “the increase of fundus autofluorescence level in diabetes patients is the earliest sign of cell death and tissue damage”. He explained that fundus autofluorescence is like a “spectral biomarker”, which can indicate whether metabolism is disordered, so “diabetes can be detected and found by using the results obtained by this instrument”.
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