Nearly 8,000 new cases of blindness could be prevented each year if people with diabetes had regular eye examinations, researchers and health officials say.

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"For decades, people with diabetes became blind from diabetic retinopathy; with sight-saving treatments now available, it is a tragedy that people may still suffer preventable blindness," Dr. Frederick Ferris of the National Eye Institute said Tuesday.Ferris conducted a review of four decades of eye research and concluded treatments for blindness-causing "proliferative diabetic retinopathy" are up to 95 percent effective.

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