The National Diabetic Retinopathy Laser Treatment Audit. II. Proliferative retinopathy

The National Diabetic Retinopathy Laser Treatment Audit is a prospective survey of laser treatment for diabetic retinopathy throughout the United Kingdom. This paper presents data on 284 patients who were undergoing their first panretinal photocoagulation for proliferative retinopathy during a 2 month period in 1995, describing the demographic features, the level of systematic screening, the sources of referral, and the waiting times. For those cases where proliferative retinopathy was present at the first ophthalmology outpatient visit, the retinopathy was detected as a result of systematic screening in 46.8%, whilst 28.7% presented symptomatically. Of these patients 28.4% waited for more than 12 weeks from referral to the time of laser treatment, but once the patient had been listed for laser treatment this was performed within 8 weeks in 95.3%. The retinopathy features and the type of treatment given are also described. Compared with the DRS and ETDRS recommendations, at least 32.5-40.2% of eyes may be undertreated initially, and for those with high-risk characteristics these figures were at least 30.8-38.5%.