AIM: To assess the impact of diabetes on corneal endothelial cells through the quantitative analysis of corneal endothelial cell morphology for patients with diabetics.

METHODS: The corneal thickness and endothelial cell morphology of 360 eyes of 299 cases were detected using full automatic corneal endothelial cell analyzer. The normal control group included 175 eyes of 148 cases, and there were 185 eyes of 151 cases for the patients with diabetes, 110 eyes of 92 cases for the non-proliferating phase group and 75 eyes of 59 cases for the proliferating phase group. The average density of central corneal endothelial cells, proportion of hexagonal cells, coefficient of variation and corneal thickness were compared among groups, and then the statistical analysis was conducted.

RESULTS: Compared with the cornea of the normal group, in the diabetes group, the coefficient of variation of corneal endothelial cells and central corneal thickness increased, while the average density of central corneal endothelial cells and proportion of hexagonal cells decreased, showing a significant difference(P<0.05). Compared with the cornea of non-proliferating phase group, in the proliferating phase group, the density of central corneal endothelial cells decreased, the coefficient of variation of corneal endothelial cells increased, while the proportion of hexagonal cells decreased with a significant difference(P<0.05), and the central corneal thickness increased, showing no significant difference(P>0.05).

CONCLUSION: Compared with the cornea of normal control group, in the diabetes group, the corneal endothelial cells show abnormal morphology, which aggravates with the severity of lesions, especially for the significant changes in the coefficient of variation and the proportion of hexagonal cells. As a result, the corneal resistance to damage in patients with diabetes will decrease.