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Ophthalmoscopy highly sensitive, specific for diagnosing diabetic retinopathy, study shows
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Slit lamp biomicroscopy is sufficiently accurate for diagnosing diabetic retinopathy and does not need to be confirmed by fluorescein angiography, according to a recent study.
S. S. Khalaf, MD, and colleagues at Jordan University Hospital in Amman compared the two diagnostic methods in 376 eyes of 189 patients being screened for diabetic retinopathy. The researchers found slit lamp biomicroscopy had 91.2% sensitivity, 97.9% specificity and a kappa agreement value of 0.87, according to the study.
"Ophthalmologists do not need to confirm a suspect clinical diagnosis of proliferative diabetic retinopathy using [fundus fluorescein angiography], as ophthalmoscopy proved to be comparable to angiography," the authors said.
The study is published in the January/February issue of the European Journal of Ophthalmology.