Screening for diabetic retinopathy in diabetic patients with a mydriasis-free, full-field flicker electroretinogram recording device

• Published in: Documenta ophthalmologica 2020-06, Vol.140 (3), p.211-220
• Main Authors: Zeng, Yunkao, Cao, Dan, Yang, Dawei, Zhuang, Xuenan, Yu, Honghua, Hu, Yunyan, Zhang, Yan, Yang, Cheng, He, Miao, Zhang, Liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent); Diabetic retinopathy; Electroretinograms; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Ophthalmology; Original Research Article; Retina; Retinopathy
• ISSN: 0012-4486; 1573-2622
• DOI: 10.1007/s10633-019-09734-2

Purpose To investigate the accuracy of the RETeval full-field flicker ERG in the screening of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (VTDR) and to determine a suitable range of DR diagnostic reference for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods This was a cross-sectional study involving 172 subjects with T2DM, including 71 subjects without clinically detectable DR (NDR), 25 subjects with mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), 24 subjects with moderate NPDR, 27 subjects with severe NPDR and 25 subjects with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). All the subjects underwent a full-field flicker ERG using the RETeval device (DR assessment protocol), which is a mydriasis-free, full-field electroretinogram (ERG) recording system. The performance of the DR assessment protocol in detecting the DR (including mild NPDR, moderate NPDR, severe NPDR and PDR) and VTDR was analyzed with the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results For the detection of DR (mild NPDR, moderate NPDR, severe NPDR, PDR), the area under the ROC curve was 0.867 ( p