Introduction:

Macular edema is the most frequent cause of visual loss in patients suffering from non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. In this condition, the detachment of photoreceptors induced by an abnormal vascular permeability reduces the resolving power of the eye and visual capacity, causing low vision in the patient.

Objective:

To characterize the behavior of diabetic macular edema and its classification according to the main changes in the optical coherence tomography.

Material and methods:

A descriptive, prospective, cross-sectional and non-controlled study was carried out in 40 diabetic patients, (80 eyes), with the clinical diagnosis of diabetic macular edema in the Department of Retina of Salvador Allende University Hospital and the Diabetes Care Center from January 2014 to December 2016. A single evaluation was carried out with a subsequent biomicroscopy and optical coherence tomography (Stratus OCT; model 3000), based on the classification suggested by Panozzo and collaborators.

Results:

Variations in retinal volume over 250 microns were found in the tomography. The cystoid thickening predominated; and according to the classification used and the degree of epiretinal traction, more patients were included in T1 and T2 groups. Finally, edema was classified as non-tractional (T0 and T1, 69 %), and tractional (T2 and T3, 31%).

Conclusions:

Optical coherence tomography and the classification suggested by Panozzo are highly useful to characterize the type of the macular edema into tractional or non-tractional, and allows to follow the adequate treatment in each patient. Non-tractional diabetic macular edema was highly noticeable in the sample studied.

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