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A study originating from Georgia, USA has been investigating the autofluorescence of lenses and diabetes recognition.With hardware and suitable instruments being quite limited for clinical application researchers were looking into the possible uses of a new scanning confocal biomicroscope that would identify the possible progression of type 2 diabetes.
One hundred and seventy eight patients were used as control or self diagnosed " normal" and fifty three as clinically diagnosed pre-diabetic or diabetic.Using a Freedom Meditech ClearPath DS-120 Fluorescence Biomicroscope which had it's fluorescence intensities corrected to allow for age and expected regressions, the deviations in fluorescence were reported as being higher in patients that were clinically diagnosed as being pre - diabetic, type 1 and type 2 diabetic.
The sensitivity and specificity performance of the lens autofluorescence test for type 2 diabetes is comparable to the performance of glucose threshold test.The statistically significant difference between fluorescence deviations of normal and type 2 diabetes supports the feasibility of lens autofluorescence to screen subjects for undiagnosed type 2 diabetes. The study found it may be a public health benefit to have eyecare professionals screen patients for undiagnosed diabetes.