The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy

To monitor the development of diabetic eye disease in Denmark and to evaluate the accessibility and effectiveness of diabetic eye screening programs with focus on interregional variations.

The target population includes all patients diagnosed with diabetes. Denmark (5.5 million inhabitants) has ~320,000 diabetes patients with an annual increase of 27,000 newly diagnosed patients. The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy (DiaBase) collects data on all diabetes patients aged ≥18 years who attend screening for diabetic eye disease in hospital eye departments and in private ophthalmological practice. In 2014-2015, DiaBase included data collected from 77,968 diabetes patients.

The main variables provide data for calculation of performance indicators to monitor the quality of diabetic eye screening and development of diabetic retinopathy. Data with respect to age, sex, best corrected visual acuity, screening frequency, grading of diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy at each visit, progression/regression of diabetic eye disease, and prevalence of blindness were obtained. Data analysis from DiaBase's latest annual report (2014-2015) indicates that the prevalence of no diabetic retinopathy, nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy, and proliferative diabetic retinopathy is 78%, 18%, and 4%, respectively. The percentage of patients without diabetic maculopathy is 97%. The proportion of patients with regression of diabetic retinopathy (20%) is greater than the proportion of patients with progression of diabetic retinopathy (10%).

The collection of data from diabetic eye screening is still expanding in Denmark. Analysis of the data collected during the period 2014-2015 reveals an overall decrease of diabetic retinopathy compared to the previous year, although the number of patients newly diagnosed with diabetes has been increasing in Denmark. DiaBase is a useful tool to observe the quality of screening, prevalence, and progression/regression of diabetic eye disease.