[Treatment of diffuse diabetic maculopathy with "grid pattern argon laser coagulation"].

Sixty eyes of 42 patients with diffuse diabetic macula edema were treated with argon laser in a "grid pattern" mode. The eyes were divided into three groups according to the preoperative visual acuity. In the first group with a preoperative visual acuity of below 0.1 (23 eyes), after 6 months of follow-up, 5 eyes improved in function by at least two lines on a Snellen chart. In the second group with an initial visual acuity of 0.2-0.4 (20 eyes) 5 eyes showed improvement and in the group with a pretreatment visual acuity of 0.5 or more (17 eyes) 6 eyes improved in function. In the first group, the visual acuity did not worsen; in the second group it worsened in 4 eyes. Two eyes in the third group showed a worse visual acuity after treatment. Similar results were found after 1 year of follow-up (27 eyes). After a 2-year follow-up (13 eyes) 9 eyes had a stable visual acuity compared to the preoperative visual acuity. Even though the number of cases with a long follow-up was relatively small, our results show clearly that early application of argon laser coagulation for diffuse macular edema allows stabilization to be achieved and, in some cases, even improvement in the visual acuity.