Article Text
Abstract
Background/Aim To validate a previously developed model for prediction of diabetic retinopathy (DR) for personalised retinopathy screening in persons with type 1 diabetes.
Methods Retrospective medical data of persons with type 1 diabetes treated in an academic hospital setting were used for analysis. Sight-threatening retinopathy (STR) was defined as the presence of severe non-proliferative DR, proliferative DR or macular oedema. The presence and grade of retinopathy, onset of diabetes, systolic blood pressure, and levels of haemoglobin A1c were used to calculate an individual risk estimate and personalised screening interval. In persons with STR, the occurrence was compared with the calculated date of screening. The model’s predictive performance was measured using calibration and discrimination techniques.
Results Of the 268 persons included in our study, 24 (9.0%) developed STR during a mean follow-up of 4.6 years. All incidences of STR occurred after the calculated screening date. By applying the model, the mean calculated screening interval was 30.5 months, which is a reduction in screening frequency of 61% compared with annual screening and 21% compared with biennial screening. The discriminatory ability was good (Harrell’s C-statistic=0.82, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.90), and calibration showed an overestimation of risk in persons who were assigned to a higher risk for STR.
Conclusion This validation study suggests that a screening programme based on the previously developed prediction model is safe and efficient. The use of a personalised screening frequency could improve cost-effectiveness of diabetic eye care.
- diagnostic tests
- investigation
- retina
- epidemiology
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Footnotes
VS and HN contributed equally.
Contributors VS and HN contributed equally to this work and share first authorship of this manuscript. VS and HN collected the data, HN, VS and AAvdH analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors were responsible for the design of the study, interpretation of data and revising the article critically for important intellectual content. All authors approved the version to be published.
Funding Support from BBMRI grant (enrichment of cohort with ophthalmological phenotyping): CJT. Support from Stichting Blindenhulp: EKdJ.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval This study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Institutional Review Board. Study participants provided written informed consent.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Deidentified participant data and statistical code are available upon request to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal. Data can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author at Vivian.Schreur@radboudumc.nl.
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