Diabetic retinopathy screening with non-mydriatic retinography by general practitioners: 2-Year results
Primary Care Diabetes, 08/17/2012
Clinical Article
Andonegui J et al. – After adequate training, general practitioners (GPs) can screen for DR with a high level of accuracy using non–mydriatic retinography. There is a need to strengthen the training of GPs in order to recognize non–visual threatening abnormalities.
Methods- Four GPs previously instructed in the interpretation of retinal photographs evaluated the digital retinography images of patients with diabetes obtained during a 2–year period.
- When the images were considered normal, a new appointment was scheduled for 1year later and a report was emailed to the referring physician.
- Patients with any sign of DR or other suspicious retinal alterations and those whose images were considered difficult or impossible to assess were referred to an ophthalmologist.
- A total of 2750 patients were referred for screening.
- The images of 2036 (74%) patients were considered normal, and the images of 714 (26%) patients were sent to ophthalmologists.
- Among the referred patients, 392 (55%) did not have DR, 244 (34%) had DR, and 78 (11%) had unreadable images.
- The retinal images of 240 patients whose fundi were considered normal were read again by ophthalmologists to evaluate false negatives.
- Of them, 16 patients (7%) had DR but only two patients (1%) had treatable DR.
