Corneal endothelium after photocoagulation in diabetic patients.

The corneal endothelium was photographed through a wide-field specular microscope in 38 eyes, in 20 successive diabetic outpatients receiving laser therapy because of underlying proliferative or background retinopathy. Areas of 100 individual endothelial cells from each central cornea were analysed using a digitizer. No statistically significant correlations were observed between mean cell areas or standard deviations of mean and total amount of previous laser energy received. Laser therapy or the type of diabetes did not seem to cause statistically significant changes in the endothelial cell areas examined.