Applicability of telemedicine in the screening of diabetic retinopathy (DR): The first multicentre study in Italy. The No Blind Study.

Applicability of telemedicine in the screening of diabetic retinopathy (DR): The first multicentre study in Italy. The No Blind Study.

Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2018 Dec 13;:e3113

Authors: Sasso FC, Pafundi PC, Gelso A, Bono V, Costagliola C, Marfella R, Sardu C, Rinaldi L, Galiero R, Acierno C, de Sio C, Adinolfi LE, NO BLIND Study Group

Abstract
AIMS: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) represents the main cause of blindness among adults in the industrialized Countries. Use of telemedicine could offer an easy, smart specialist fundus oculi examination, as well as putting in a screening program many patients who otherwise would be excluded.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The NO Blind is a transversal, multicentre, observational study. Its pilot phase involved nine public outpatient clinics for six months. As endpoint of the study, we assessed the prevalence of DR by retinography in a subset of the Italian population. Patients' fundus oculi photos were performed by trained diabetologists through a digital smart ophthalmoscope.
RESULTS: According to our endpoint, in the final study population (n=1461), obtained excluding patients for whom retinography was not able to provide any diagnosis, DR prevalence was equal to 15.5%. According to the ROC Curve performed, we can observe how retinography appears a highly accurate method to detect DR (AUROC 0.971 95% C.I. 0.954-0.989), with a specificity of the 100% and a sensitivity of the 94.3%.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings, in an Italian setting, confirm main data in the literature about DR prevalence. Hence, telemedicine could represent an accurate, fast and cheap method for screening of DR.

PMID: 30548967 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]