Eye Disease in Patients with Diabetes Screened with Telemedicine

Abstract

Background: Telemedicine with nonmydriatic cameras can detect not only diabetic retinopathy but also other eye disease.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of eye diseases detected by telemedicine in a population with a high prevalence of minority and American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) ethnicities.

Subjects and methods: We recruited diabetic patients 18 years and older and used telemedicine with nonmydriatic cameras to detect eye disease. Two trained readers graded the images for diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), glaucomatous features, macular edema, and other eye disease using a standard protocol. We included both eyes for analysis and excluded images that were too poor to grade.

Results: We included 820 eyes from 424 patients with 72.3% nonwhite ethnicity and 50.3% AI/AN heritage. While 283/424 (66.7%) patients had normal eye images, 120/424 (28.3%) had one disease identified; 15/424 (3.5%) had two diseases; and 6/424 (1.4%) had three diseases in one or both eyes. After diabetic retinopathy (104/424, 24.5%), the most common eye diseases were glaucomatous features (44/424, 10.4%) and dry ARMD (24/424, 5.7%). Seventeen percent (72/424, 17.0%) showed eye disease other than diabetic retinopathy.

Conclusions: Telemedicine with nonmydriatic cameras detected diabetic retinopathy, as well as other visually significant eye disease. This suggests that a diabetic retinopathy screening program needs to detect and report other eye disease, including glaucoma and macular disease.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01364129.

Keywords: Ophthalmology; e-health; telehealth; telemedicine.

Conflict of interest statement

No competing financial interests exist.