Materials and Methods: Charts of a total of of 76 patients (99 eyes) with clinically significant diabetic macular edema were retrospectively evaluated. Those who were followed up for less than 6 months were excluded from the study. Complete ocular examination including the visual acuity, intraocular pressure measurements were performed before and 1, 3 and 6 months after the laser therapy. All patients underwent fundus flourescein angiography before and 3 months after the laser. Several parameters, such as age, gender, diabetes duration, antidiabetic therapy (oral antidiabetics or insulin use), hypertension, nephropathy, blood lipid profile and cigarette usage, were inquired before the laser therapy to assess the effect of patient characteristics on the laser treatment. Blood glucose,creatinine, Na, K, Cl and HbA1c levels were evaluated. Student t test, correlation analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used for the statistical analysis of the study.

Results: Average age of the patients in the study was 56.3±7.4 years. Final visual acuity of those who were under insulin treatment (n: 46), over 50 years of age (n: 56), diabetes duration more than 15 years (n: 59), hypertension(n: 63), nephropathy (n:19) and hyperlipidemia(n:44) were found to be significantly less than the opposite group (odds ratios were: 3.21, 3.01, 2.86, 1.94, 1.88 ve 1.67, respectively; all p values, <0.05). Cigarette smoking (p>0.05) and gender (p>0.05) factors were found to have no significant effect on final visual acuity after the laser treatment.

Conclusion: Those diabetic patients with clinically significant macular edema who were with insulin treatment, advanced age, hypertension, long diabetes duration, nephropathy and hyperlipidemia seemed to response poorly, in terms of final visual acuity, to grid laser photocoagulation therapy. Keywords : Diabetes, macular edema, grid laser, patient profile