A new study published in The International Journal of Neuroscience investigated whether retinopathy findings could be helpful in detecting the degeneration in retinal ganglion cells with the visual evoked potential (VEP) test prior to an ophthalmoscopic examination in prediabetic individuals.

In this prospective study, participants were divided into three groups – Impaired Fasting Glucose (IFG), Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) and Control groups. All the patients underwent physical, ophthalmological and VEP examination. Three main components of VEP obtained from these groups were N75, P100 and N145 latency, and N75-P100 amplitude.

The results showed that P100 latency significantly increased in the IGT group when compared to the Control group for both the eyes, whereas this component did not increase significantly in the IFG group with respect to the Control group.

From the findings, it was concluded that VEP may be a parameter of predictive value which can be used in evaluating prediabetic patients for retinopathies similar to DM.