The UK Diabetic Retinopathy Electronic Medical Record (UK DR EMR) Users Group, Report 2: real-world data for the impact of cataract surgery on diabetic macular oedema

Aim To assess the rate of ‘treatment-requiring diabetic macular oedema (DMO)’ in eyes for the two  years before and after cataract surgery. Methods Multicentre national diabetic retinopathy (DR) database study with anonymised data extraction across 19 centres from an electronic medical record system. Inclusion criteria: eyes undergoing cataract surgery in patients with diabetes with no history of DMO prior to study start. The minimum dataset included: age, visual acuity (all time-points), injection episodes, timing of cataract surgery and ETDRS grading of retinopathy and maculopathy. Main outcome measure: rate of developing first episode of treatment-requiring DMO in relation to timing of cataract surgery in the same eye. Results 4850 eyes met the inclusion criteria. The rate of developing treatment-requiring DMO in this cohort was 2.9% in the year prior to surgery versus 5.3% in the year after surgery (p Conclusions This large real-world study demonstrates that the rate of developing treatment-requiring DMO increases sharply in the year after cataract surgery for all grades of retinopathy, peaking in the 3–6 months9 postoperative period. Patients with moderate and severe NPDR are at particularly high risk.