Vascular abnormalities in diabetes and their treatment.

The capillary abnormalities of diabetes include both dilatation and occlusion. Occlusion is the more important, as vision-threatening lesions are secondary to capillary occlusion. Capillary occlusion could result from abnormalities of blood coagulation and from endothelial cell disease. Evidence is presented of the predominant role of endothelial disease--abnormal coagulation is probably secondary. While there is no known treatment which can reliably prevent or reverse capillary changes, approaches by antiplatelet agents and normalization of blood sugar are possible methods.