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RETeval: Making a Difference in Diabetic Retinopathy Care

Transcript

Kelly MacDonald, OD: “For RETeval making a difference in my practice where I realized that I needed to keep doing this, I had a morning where I happened to have two patients with moderate diabetic retinopathy. Their retinas looked quite similar. Remarkably similar, their A1Cs were both about eight. There wasn’t a lot of difference. One of them had a RETeval score in the mid-teens and one of them was at 27. And the one in the mid-teens, I said “You know what? We’re great for 6 months. I’ll still see you every 6 months.” But the one at 27, I said “I’m going to see you back in 8 weeks.” Because he has a high, high risk of converting to severe retinopathy. But it was clinically a very similar picture on the OCT and the retinal exam. RETeval made the difference and who needed the more careful follow-up.”

Bradley Grant, OD: “The RETeval has really helped us to catch pathology earlier. The best example of that I can give would be the diabetic test, where it gives a DR Score. The DR Score is a predictive value for potentially needing treatment for diabetic retinopathy. And we can evaluate that score and let us know how close we might be. If you have a high DR Score, but we’re really only seeing some microvascular changes, that’s going to make me a lot more nervous for that patient than someone who maybe has some subtle microvascular changes, but their DR Score is perfect, let’s say it’s 17. I might not be seeing that patient back quite as often. It allows me to make better decisions to follow-up, severity, and ultimately treatment.”

Kelly MacDonald, OD: “When I’m talking to patients about the DR Score with the RETeval, I just let them know that it’s a a straightforward scale. That if they’re at 23.5 and above, their risk is higher. But if they’re below that, their risk is much lower. We can minimize our concern. It also helps me of course to always emphasize how important it is their blood sugar, diet, exercise. But if their score is higher, I can talk to them about the risk of vision loss at a different level and emphasize it. And they get it, they understand a number. They’re used to seeing their A1C. This is another number that they can use to monitor their care.”

Bradley Grant, OD: “Now with the RETeval, when we see possibly some risk assessment problems, let’s say they have a high DR Score, maybe I’m going back and getting another macular OCT and taking another look. Maybe I’m getting an OCT that I haven’t gotten in 12 months, OCT-A that I haven’t gotten in 12 months. Taking maybe sometimes a second look at that photo, taking a deeper look at the fundus autofluorescence. Seeing if I’m potentially breezing over some pathology. Just based on again the function is right there in front of you. And if the function is not normal, we need to find out why. And it many times drives us to look at those other structural tests to make that connection.”