In vivo detection of cornea structural changes in an animal model of diabetes mellitus

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a group of diseases characterized by chronic hyperglycemia caused by inadequate insulin secretion or impaired insulin action, or both. Diabetic corneal neuropathy can result in chronic, sight-threatening corneal pathology. In vivo non-invasive techniques to determine the changes in corneal thickness are of extreme importance to adequately monitor disease progression. In this work, we evaluated the effects of hyperglycemia in the corneal structure of Wistar rats using optical coherence tomography (OCT) and ultrasounds. This study showed that the central cornea thickness increased in diabetic rats, and that stroma was the corneal layer that most contributed for the central cornea thickness increase in DM. It has also been shown that the OCT technique can be used to study the alterations in the substructure of the cornea promoted by hyperglycemia in DM.