November is Diabetes Awareness Month.  In 2015, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, had diabetes and approximately 1.25 million American children and adults had type 1 diabetes. These numbers are on the rise and the disease manifests with deleterious and deadly impact throughout the body – including the eye. An understanding of the disease, early detection and treatment are more imperative than ever.

 

A recent study cooperatively funded by the National Eye Institute, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases and the US Department of Health and Human Services concluded  that optomap ultra-widefield (UWF™) retinal imaging is a useful diagnostic tool for detection and assessment of severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR). The study published recently in JAMA Ophthalmology demonstrates that optomap UWF imaging can be used reliably in place of Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) 7-Field imaging in clinical use and future clinical trials.  The paper, which builds off recent single site studies that found moderate to perfect agreement between the modalities, supports these findings through data acquired over a two-year period from multiple sites.

The gold standard assessment of DR severity has been based on grading of lesions within the ETDRS …

November is recognized as American Diabetes Month and Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month.  Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month aims to increase awareness of diabetes and diabetic eye disease and encourage people with diabetes to seek treatment for related vision problems.   According to Prevent Blindness America, Diabetes is now the leading cause of new cases of blindness in adults, and all people with diabetes are at risk for vision loss and blindness.

Diabetic eye disease refers to a group of eye problems that diabetic persons may face as a complication of this disease including: Diabetic retinopathy – A leading cause of blindness in American adults, it is caused by damage to the small blood vessels of the retina – the seeing layer of the eye. Diabetic macular edema (DME)  – A complication of diabetes caused by leaking blood vessels, which leads to fluid accumulation in the macula, the center of the retina used for central vision. DME can cause central vision to become blurry. Cataract – The clouding of the lens in the eye, which blocks or changes the passage of light into the eye. Cataracts can cause vision to become blurry. Glaucoma  – Optic nerve damage and possible loss of …