The preliminary results of a study of Dutch validation on the automated image analysis of the retina for the detection of diabetic retinopathy (RD) Treatable, have shown that the software called IDX-DR is a method of examination “high specificity andsensitivity".
The data has been presented during the recent Congress of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) of Ocular Complications in Turin, Italy.This approval study has been carried out in a clinical environment with 627 diabetes patients of the Western frisia diabetes care system.
In this approval research, the automated graduation was compared through the use of IDX-DR software with that made by three independent retinal experts.In accordance with the Eurodiab classification, the sensitivity and specificity levels were 87 percent and 89 percent, respectively.
“The current scan methods of diabetic retinopathy are currently quite expensive due to the increase in the incidence of diabetes.Based on such results and thanks to its easy implementation in our daily clinical practice, I am convinced that automated detection is a safe and economically efficient method that is an important novelty in the examination of diabetic retinopathy, ”explained the principal researcher, Giel Nijpels.
Common Ocular Complication in Diabetes
Diabetic retinopathy is a common ocular complication in diabetes that occurs when high blood sugar levels damage the network of thin capillaries that supply blood to the retina.All diabetic people are at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy, but adequate blood sugar control, cholesterol and blood pressure minimize this risk.
After ten years suffering from diabetes, 90 percent of patients with type I diabetes will be in an RD phase, as well as 67 percent of type 2 patients who are not administered insulin and 79 percent of thepatients who are administered.
When it is not detected or left without, the RD can cause loss of vision and, finally, blindness.Early phase detection (scanning) improves the probability of effective treatment, thus avoiding the progress of the disease.
“In the United Kingdom, we have been able to change the pattern of blindness related to diabetes.In the last ten years, diabetic retinopathy has ceased to be the main cause of blindness in the United Kingdom, ”said the director of the Research Center of the Research and Development Department of the NiHR Biomedical Research Center in the Moorfields ophthalmological hospital,of the National Health System of the United Kingdom and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, Tunde Peto.
Advantages of automated scan and IDX-DR
IDX-DR is like an advanced algorithm for automated detection of early signs of treatable diabetic retinopathy, through images taken with normal retinal cameras.IDX-DR has undergone exhaustive approval and dissemination and received the CE brand in 2013.
“You are ready to be used.We know that it is safe thanks to multiple scientific studies.We have repeatedly demonstrated that IDX-RD is highly sensitive and specific in the detection of diabetic retinopathies in different ethnic groups, various types of retinal cameras and in different countries, ”said IDX president and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences,Telecommunications and Computer and Biomedical Engineering Engineering at Iowa University, Michael Abramoff.