Fundus imaging and the telemedical management of diabetes

Diabetes is the major preventable form of blindness among people of working age in the Western world, despite the improvements in laser photocoagulation treatments. It is known that regular glycaemic control and annual retinal screening of people with diabetes can reduce its incidence. Effective treatment needs to be available but also screening methods which are simple to perform and cost-effective should be implemented. It will be important in future to integrate digital images of the fundus into the health records of diabetic patients. Screening programmes for the detection of diabetic retinopathy aided by image-processing software for processing fundus images will save manpower and increase quality. Before this can happen, we need more clinical studies of store-and-forward techniques, so that they can be standardized and their effectiveness established against that of traditional analogue screening.