Thanasekaran Vijhaya Priya, Sundaram Arul Murugan
BACKGROUND Systemic hypertension is one of the common problems which is often asymptomatic. Because of this, often we fail to detect hypertension earlier. Purpose of this study is to find out the prevalence of hypertensive retinopathy at the time of diagnosis. We wanted to determine the prevalence of retinopathy in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients. METHODS Among the patients who attended ophthalmology outpatient department, the prevalence of hypertensive retinopathy was studied in 100 newly diagnosed hypertensive patients. The results were analysed using MS excel sheet. RESULTS This study shows that 8% of newly diagnosed hypertensive patients had grade I hypertensive retinopathy, 3% had grade II hypertensive retinopathy, and 1% had grade III hypertensive retinopathy. In our study, none of the newly diagnosed hypertensive patients were found to have grade IV hypertensive retinopathy. CONCLUSION The presence of hypertensive retinopathy changes in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients indicates that there has been a significant time gap between onset of illness and diagnosis. Early detection, treatment, good control and follow up of hypertension will decrease the morbidity and mortality.
