The influence of pregnancy on diabetic retinopathy with special regard to the reversible changes shown in 100 pregnancies.

A prospective study of the eyes of 75 diabetic women during the course of 100 pregnancies is presented as a contribution to the, as yet, still unresolved question concerning the influence of pregnancy on diabetic retinopathy. Fifty patients in the material had a retinopathy prior to pregnancy, proliferations were present in 2 of them. During the course of the pregnancy, proliferative changes developed in 4 patients, and a background retinopathy developed in a further 4 patients. Special interest is placed on the transitory changes in the retinopathy that occurs in a number of these patients. In the present material this has occurred in 23 patients, all of whom had a retinopathy. This is especially apparent in the form of soft exudates, haemorrhages and retinal oedema. In marked cases a characteristic feature was an obvious capillary change. This transitory capillaropathy is considered as being the cause of this temporary increase in the severity of the retinopathy. The changes regressed in all of the 23 patients. The results confirm that pregnancy can hardly be considered to influence the further course of a background retinopathy. Even though the question as to whether pregnancy can influence the course of a proliferative retinopathy still remains open, evaluation of both the present and previous materials suggest that pregnancy by and large does not aggravate the 'average' progression of a proliferative diabetic retinopathy.