[Ocular complications in diabetes: towards standardizing screening and care].

Diabetic retinopathy remains a major cause of blindness and vision loss in France. Around 2% of diabetic patients become legally blind and 10% have a severe visual handicap. Systematic screening, careful follow-up and treatment of diabetic retinopathy should allow to avoid severe ocular complications. ETDRS (Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study) brought major information concerning the natural history of diabetic retinopathy and allowed to establish a convenient classification. Laser photocoagulation improves the prognosis of proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and decreases the rate of vision loss due to macular oedema. Diabetic retinopathy may worsen after cataract extraction; therefore close ophthalmological follow-up after surgery is necessary. It has not been proven that glaucoma is more frequent in diabetic patients than in the general population.