Relationship between diabetes and grayscale fractal dimensions of retinal vasculature in the Indian population

BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus is rapidly increasing in the Indian population. The purpose of this study was to identify changes in the retinal vasculature of diabetic people, ahead of visual impairments. Grayscale Fractal Dimension (FD) analysis of retinal images was performed on people with type 2 diabetes from an Indian population. METHODS A cross-sectional study comprising 189 Optic Disc (OD) centred retinal images of healthy and diabetic individuals aged 14 to 73 years was conducted. Grayscale Box Counting FD of these retinal photographs was measured without manual supervision. Statistical analysis was conducted to determine the difference in the FD between diabetic and healthy (non-diabetic) people. RESULTS The results show that grayscale FD values for diabetic cases are higher compared to controls, irrespective of the gender. It was also observed that FD was higher for male compared with females. CONCLUSIONS There is difference in the grayscale fractal dimension of retinal vasculature of diabetic patients and healthy subjects, even when there is no reported retinopathy.