Silver Book Fact
Quality of life of diabetic retinopathy patients
A study evaluating quality of life using utility values, found that diabetic retinopathy patients with best-corrected visual acuity of 20/20 and 20/25, were willing to trade 15% of their remaining years of life for near perfect vision. Those who were legally blind (best-corrected visual acuity of counting fingers to hand motions) from diabetes were willing to trade 41% of their remaining years in return for perfect vision.
Brown M, Brown G, Sharma S, Shah G. Utility Values and Diabetic Retinopathy. Am J Ophthalmol. 1999; 128(3). http://www.ajo.com/article/S0002-9394(99)00146-4/abstract