Family physicians effective in diabetic retinopathy detection in telemedicine program
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CHICAGO — Family physicians are effective in their classifications of diabetic retinopathy using a telemedicine program, according to a poster presented here.
“Family physicians detected 100% of patients with moderate or severe NPDR and correctly classified 93.6% of retinographies obtained through the telemedicine program,” Antonio Ferreras, MD, PhD, MBA, and colleagues said in a poster presentation at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.
Ferreras and colleagues compared level of agreement between five family medicine physicians and one retina specialist in their evaluation of images obtained with a nonmydriatic fundus camera from 2,260 patients with diabetes over a 1-year period.
Family medicine physicians identified 27 of the patients with moderate or severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), and all cases were confirmed in the ophthalmic setting. In addition, no cases of proliferative DR were found in either the primary care setting or the ophthalmology setting (100% agreement), and there was 99.7% agreement in identification of images without DR (2,039 for primary care vs. 2,032 for ophthalmology).
Of the 180 images that family medicine physicians referred for further assessment, 42 were correctly classified as “without DR,” 51 were classified as “doubtful case,” 83 were sent as “unreadable,” and four false-positive findings were determined by the ophthalmologist not to have DR, according to the poster.
“Overall, the performance of trained family medicine doctors to read images of the telemedicine program for screening of diabetic retinopathy was excellent,” Ferreras and colleagues wrote.
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Ferreras A, et al. Ability of family medicine doctors to detect DR in a telemedicine program. Presented at: American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting; Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2022; Chicago.
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