Allergy Test Dosage of Fluorescein Detects Diabetic Retinopathy Changes in Fundus Fluorescein Angiography

Background: The aims of this study were to evaluate the feasibility of allergy test dosage of fluorescein sodium (1%) for Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) detection in Fundus Fluorescein Angiography (FFA) examination as compared to the regular dosage (20%). 

Methods: Totally 77 eyes from 42 DR patients were included in this prospective study. Capillary non-perfusion area, neovascularization, diabetic macular edema and microaneurysms were measured by FFA and compared at 1, 5 and 15 min after intravenous injection of 1% or 20% fluorescein sodium. 

Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the proportions of capillary non-perfusion area and diabetic macular edema as well as the amount of neovascularization between the 1% and 20% fluorescein sodium groups. Yet, the 1% group had a significantly a smaller number of microaneurysms than the 20% group at 1 min (p < 0.001) and a smaller number of eyes with diabetic macular edema than the 20% group at 5 (p = 0.032) and 15 min (p = 0.015). The images from patients with clear vitreous had better quality than the images from patients with vitreous opacity (all p < 0.05, except comparison on neovascularization at 5 min: p > 0.999). All examined indexes showed high correlations between the 1% and 20% groups (r > 0.8, p < 0.001). 

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that 1% fluorescein sodium could detect the changes of DR comparably to the regular dosage.