This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Ultra-widefield imaging increases diabetic retinopathy detection
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
DENVER — Ultra-widefield imaging may double diabetic retinopathy detection and referral rates while decreasing the ungradable rate in telemedicine programs, according to a presentation here.
In a poster presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology annual meeting, Mark B. Horton, MD, and colleagues evaluated the implementation of ultra-widefield imaging of 456 patients within the Indian Health Service ocular telehealth program in comparison to 7,460 subjects imaged with the current standard of non-mydriatic multi-field fundus photography.
“This issue, since we know that if you detect patients in a timely fashion and treat patients in a timely fashion, 95% of at-risk individuals don’t have to suffer serious vision loss due to diabetic retinopathy,” Horton told Ocular Surgery News. “The key is timely diagnosis and treatment, and that is where we are failing across virtually all populations.”
Ultra-widefield imaging reduced the ungradable image rate by 85% to less than 5% per eye and by 92% to 2.1% per patient.
Diabetic retinopathy identification increased from 12% to 23%, and referable diabetic retinopathy more than doubled from 6% to 14%.
Identification of peripheral lesions suggested more severe diabetic retinopathy severity in 20% of patients.
“The introduction of [ultra-widefield imaging] will double the diabetic retinopathy detection rate, will double the referral rate and will decrease profoundly the ungradable rate,” Horton said. “And so the utility of this is you can surveil for diabetic retinopathy in a primary care environment.” - by Kristie L. Kahl
Disclosure: Horton reports no relevant financial disclosures.