Photobiomodulation in the treatment of patients with non-center-involving diabetic macular oedema

Abstract

Purpose: Far-red/near-infrared phototherapy or photobiomodulation (PBM) has recently been reported to be an effective and non-invasive treatment method to inhibit lesions of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in animals. This study investigated the safety and efficacy of PBM in diabetic patients to treat non-center-involving diabetic macular oedema (NCDME).

Methods: This was a non-randomised, consecutive, case series, where 4 patients with type 2 diabetes with NCDME were treated for 160 s per day with PBM for 2-9 months. Demographic data including age, sex, HbA1c%, electronic ETDRS visual acuity, and retinal and macular thickness were measured using spectral domain ocular coherence tomography (SD-OCT) before and after treatment.

Results: Four eyes of 4 patients were treated, with fellow eyes serving as untreated controls. Daily PBM treatment for only 80 s per treatment twice daily caused a significant reduction in focal retinal thickening in all 4 treated eyes. No adverse effects attributable to therapy were noted by the patients or study investigators during the study period.

Conclusions: PBM potentially offers a non-invasive and cost-effective therapeutic option for patients with NCDME. Further studies of this therapeutic option in DR are warranted.

Keywords: Retina; Treatment other.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Figures

Figure 1

(A) Image of the device from the patients viewpoint. Study ’ participants were asked to hold the device an inch away from the closed study eye during use. The device was designed to shut off after 80 s. (B) Image of the device turned on and demonstrating that it was a lightweight, portable, battery-operated device that emits red coloured light of 670 nm. The device did not emit heat, and was completely cool to the touch.

Figure 2

SD-OCT thickness colour map of each of our four study patients demonstrating pretreatment SD-OCT macular thickness and post-treatment macular thickness of the treated eye (first and second columns on the left, respectively). Fellow (untreated) eye data is demonstrated in the two columns on the right. Duration of PBM treatment of each of the patients at the time of these photos was 7, 7, 9 and 2 months, respectively.